Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Saga Of The Inept
by RaulBrozzoXIV
Summary: Pascal, your typical, outcast narcissist drifloon, becomes involved with the mysterious past of a timid Shelmet, Ulivier. By one way or another, they're recruited to the Pomeg Guild under the banner of Team Kavatara. What are they up against? A mafia, a mean-spirited karrablast, an overachieving pignite, and an overbearing mafia!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A balloon and a hippo intercept a snail which was once a human

"…Halloo?..." came a hazy and lofty call from somewhere above the extreme nausea and turmoil of the brain. He couldn't focus for the life of himself, and he rolled around in the dream without a dream while being momentarily serenaded by the call.

"…Hellooo?..." it called again, similar to the first call but more urgent; he could now derive that the voice was quite phlegmatic and lofty sounding coo of a voice. He could suddenly feel the muscles in his eyelids and tried to flutter them open…when he did, all he could make sense of was bright light coming in grills contrasted by utter darkness; quite curious. Why couldn't he see? "Hey buddy~…" greeted the mystery speaker from seemingly ahead; he couldn't tell though due to a lack of spatial intelligence. Though along with the voice's call came the rustling of tall grass and rippling of water. To be honest, he was feeling quite impatient at how relentless and dull the voice sounded. He tried vocalizing in reply "G-go…away please," he reluctantly mumbled, though he realized that his phrase echoed mutely back at him; apparently his face was being covered.

"Awww naw." Chirped the voice in reply, just as dully. "I'm not gonna do that buddy." Outside of his ablation came the gentle thunder of approaching footsteps on marshy ground. Between the slits on his 'mask' which allowed him to see what was apparently the outside atmosphere became clouded with a pinkish, stubby figure. "Here…maybe dis help you." A protrusion from the figure, presumably its arm, suddenly pushed against the cover on his face, which from the sound it made was apparently hard and robust. It somehow reached underneath the crack which separated his cover from a similarly constructed lower half of the mask and lifted it up, letting the pink figure tower over him unexpectedly. His vision was still hazy, but at this point he knew that it was in fact a figure but far from human; its big egg-colored maw smiled inanely as its black pupils made warm eye contact with him. It raised a stubby arm tipped with a paw of sorts and waved it in greeting. "Hallo!~"

Almost instantly he called on a reflex previously unused to clamp his shell-…mask shut in defense towards the apparently aberrant, pink tubby blob. Oddly enough, he didn't use his arms to slam his face covering shut; come to think of it, he couldn't feel his arms at all. He was too busy being gripped by fear and anxiety to think about missing appendages, for this thing was likely to kill him. "G-go away now!" he screeched as he winced out of terror at the ultimately harmless slowbro. "O-or I'll spit at you!" he wasn't sure how the second half of his interjection made sense, but he was going off of instinct at this point, and spitting on enemies in defense was one of the many new habits that had somehow implanted themselves into his subconscious.

"Awwwr…Doncha be that way, buddy." The pink creature, now easily visible due to his eyes adjusting to the light, knelt beside the covered boy intently, keenly staring at the trembling eyes of his in between the apertures of his cover.

"I-I'm not y-your buddy...w-what the hell e-even are you?" whimpered the boy in between soft little sobs of panic.

"Huh?.. Ah, I'm Paul!" said the hippo-otter thing gleefully, letting a big smile bend on his face as he announced his name cheerfully. "Imma slowbro! Good tah meetcha!" there was something about the slowbro's peculiar way of tact that the boy found adorable. "Do you gotta name, buddy?"

"N-no! I don't have-…" The boy's train of thought suddenly crashed dead in its tracks. Since when did the boy not know his own name? If he could remember right, he had a very good memory, so why didn't it work to remember something as fundamental as what those around him addressed him as? The boy paused for a few moments, gazing at the pink behemoth and coming to the conclusion that it was probably too stupid to even know what killing was. He took the gamble and lifted his 'mask' without aid of arms. "I-I…I d-don't remember, s-sir." The boy's pathos and empathy for the slowbro gave way to his caution; he rationalized that he was probably harmless and the only solution to his sudden discrepancy of memory. He shouldn't have been so expectant of an answer however, as the stupid slowbro simply stared at the boy for a few seconds, giggling errant at times. "W-what's so funny…d-don't laugh at me!" suddenly defensive towards what was apparently an assault on character, the boy winced and felt a familiar feeling of dread come over his mind; this happened when people criticized him.

"Naw…it's just funny to me how big shelmet lips are. Hehe…always wanna kiss someone doncha?" the nameless boy furrowed his brow at how incoherent and offensive that statement sounded, but before he could open his lips in protest he noticed that his lips protruded from his face and were in vision; they were also comically enormous. The boy eeped at how alien he had become and finally came to the realization that he was far from human.

"W-what?!...W-why..." said the boy as he stuttered gently in shock, sniffling as well and nearly on the verge of tears. He lowered his bevor into the marsh and let his eyes sag and accumulate with tears. He felt awful and claustrophobic suddenly realizing that he wasn't a human anymore; in fact, being a human was one of the only things he could remember about his past.

"Hey Buddy!" suddenly yelped Paul with an inherent pity in his voice "Wassa problem? You don't sound too happy." In reply, the shelmet simply whimpered and burst out into big bawls of despair. "Naw…buddy doesn't need tah cry…" the shelmet felt Paul grasp his lower half and lift his body into his arms, after which the slowbro began softly petting the open, slimy muscle inside the shelmet's armet. The green cheeks of the shelmet blushed softly (which wasn't typical for him); being pet shouldn't have felt so gratifying~. "Duzzat make ya feel awright, buddy?" in spite of himself, the little shelmet nodded, replacing his sobs with a very slight, guttural purr. The new shelmet suddenly realized that this could possibly progress...negatively (at least in his mind), and he promptly vocalized his discomfort.

"Cut it out!" he blurted, hoping to get the pink, sweaty imbecile to stop caressing him. Abruptly, he was dropped, causing discomfort on what would be his behind. It was only mitigated by the shell which provided protection to him. It suddenly dawned on him that staying clamped in his shell would provide the greatest comfort and might solve his problem. He could feign being unconscious by shutting his shell. After all, a fall from that relative height would probably give the average joe a concusion. He shut his eyes and groaned convincingly enough to make Paul stare curiously. The slowbro clearly showed some concern and nudged the shelmet with his stumpish leg. "Aw Naw!" he suddenly yelped, face growing distressed as he put his hands to his face in shock. "Ah knocked him out!" it had worked.

Nevertheless, the shelmet was still picked up by the big, crude hands of Paul the slowbro, clenched snugly, but not uncomfortably, around his waist. "Oh Goodnuss, lookie there!" Paul suddenly spotted something which induced inconceivably crippling fear in his gut... the funny thing was that it stood under 2 feet.

Roland was content with trotting along the murkier quagmire of the road to "coax" food out of Carson, the bidoof resident to a dam about a kilometer north of his parent's den. The means to the end of begging tribute wasn't particularly just. In fact, the rambunctious karrablast got a **huge** kick out of his art of "persuasion" which involved threats to beat Carson up in his sleep if he didn't hand over his supply of cranberries to the mean-spirited beetle. In spite of his malintentions, Roland was still a connoisseur to the landscape of Forellenburg lagoon, and as he paced with his heart set on threatening an inept and aloof beaver, he sometimes eyed how the sun was cast across the lagoon.

He suddenly heard errant, dopey bleats up in the distance. Great: it was that retard hippo. His mate Alfonso thought that it would be a good idea to bite the nitwit's tail as a harsh joke, and to his dismay, it backfired. Not only was Alfonso suddenly enamored with biting onto Paul's tail, it made Paul even more stupid and annoying. The idiot began to approach Roland; it probably wanted to say hi to his "buggy friend". It was worth enduring the humiliation of being in proximity to Paul to salute Alfonso.

Roland saw the whites of Paul's eyes, the puny, unfocused pupils staring into seemingly nothing as it continued towards Roland with its heavy, wobbling gait. "Hello buggy!" said Paul quite contently, failing to display a complementing facial expression because of how seemingly stupid the Slowbro was. Roland glanced at his friend on the end of Paul's tail; Alfonso looked as traumatized as ever. He nodded sorrowfully, empathetic to how awful being near someone so stupid must be.

"Hllp mmihh," came muffled in between jaws from Alfonso. Everytime Roland and Alfonso met, the shelder would make that same plea, and it had yet to be heeded from Roland.

"Howzit go Buggy?" Paul inquired as he lurched his upper body towards Roland, who cringed as his personal space was violated.

"What the hell do you want this time?!" came from Roland, irate and disgusted with Paul, trying to pace around him to continue on his walk.

"Oh. I just wanted tah introduce youh to a friend here." stated Paul as he torqued around to reach into a bit of marsh, placing Alfonso closer to Roland and allowing him once more to plea for help.

"Plllshh." he implored, tilting his brows up in peril. He was unheeded once again. With that, Paul swiveled back towards Roland with a decently sized casquette, in it was the shelmet who he had just met.

"Dis guy here wants a new friend," chirped Paul as he pointed towards the shelmet in his paws. "Gohead and say hi to buddy."

But Roland didn't want to say hi to "buggy". Roland felt something much more primordial and urgent rise up in his instinct. Paul was holding a shelmet, and every karrablast on the face of the planet knew quite plainly that one needs a shelmet to evolve and that they're very tasty. Roland felt the rage to be conserved for Carson well up uncontrollably towards the scrumptious snail. He inhaled and exhaled noticeably. "Y-yeah...go ahead...and set him on the ground...Paul." said a Roland through his gritted teeth, suddenly very very hungry; his parents would be proud of him for killing a shelmet.

"Kay!" he dropped the shelmet on the ground, inciting a grunt from the covered bug. Suddenly, the shelmet felt unsafe in the presence of the karrablast, and Paul was stupid enough to leave him out in the open.

Suddenly Roland clenched the shell and swung it around so that it could be easily bashed away from Paul, and Roland began prodding the shelmet virulently with his horn in an attempt to sunder the shell peck. Of course, the shelmet was suddenly terrified beyond belief, but was also glad that his shell was excellent at fending off the aggressor. His blows still hurt, though, and the anxiety welled up to a point where he began to cry like an infant. Relucatantly, the shelmet sobbed.

"YEAH YOU WHINE LIKE THE LITTLE BITCH YOU ARE! GET OUT OF THAT SHELL, PUSSY AND FIGHT ME LIKE YOU'VE GOT A DICK!" Roland had the heart of a poet when particularly enraged.

For some reason, the snail was compliant towards Roland's challenge and stood up for himself unconsciously, and in a split second, the shelmet had lifted its hood in between the viscious prods by the beetle, spitting a purple ooze into the eyes of Roland and stunning him momentarily acid. After he did, the iron gastropod closed his hood shut and watched the karrablast cover his eyes and waltz around in a daze, yelling profanities carelessly. It was a shame that the shelmet felt no pride in his victory over the malicious beetle; it was drowned out by how virulently Roland had spoken to the shelmet.

Roland stumbled a bit, still blinded and desperate to regain vision. He bumped into something fleshy and quite tall, falling on his face afterwards. The dirt cleared his eyes of the corrosive venom, though Roland suddenly realized that he stood in the shadow of something huffing loudly and vehemently. He looked up. Paul had a sour look on his face as he towered over the crass karrablast. Roland was picked up so that Paul could be more personal with his adamant eye contact. "LET ME GO , ASSHAT!"

"Alright, meanie!" Roland's wish was granted. He was tossed up, airborne for 5 seconds to allow the suddenly angry slowbro to focus. Paul's scalp radiated with energy as he hummed in meditation. The moment Roland was in Paul's reach, the slowbro smacked the bug type visciously with his noggin zen headbutt. Roland flew into a clay escarpment, making a dent into thick clay which was 10 meters away from Paul. Alfonso and the shelmet stood shocked at how suddenly powerful Paul had revealed himself to be. The slowbro wiped his mitts off and nodded at himself, then walked towards a traumatized shelmet. "Buggy is a big meanie." absolutely no sound came from the other, less aggressive bug type, though Paul was successful in interpreting the snail's silence as PTSD. "Don' worry snail pal," Paul picked up the shuddering bug once more and set off down the trail. "We gunna find you anuther friend rainow." and with that, Alfonso and Paul set out unwillingly to a stray willow tree up ahead. Roland groaned, still freshly bashed by Paul's unperceived power. It was going to be a while before he could tribute berries from Carson.

Pascal had just been woken up and startled, straining the tether to the aromatic willow tree. It was a shame, too; he was certainly having one of those rare, uncannily pleasant dreams. He might have even had some jurisdiction over what flashed by his subconscious in his sleep; maybe he gorged himself on aethereal oran berries in his imagination, which he could otherwise not eat because Pascal was a balloon (balloons don't eat). Bittersweetly, however, his dream was impeded by a familiar mongoloid calling: "Wakeup B'lloon!" and if there was one thing Pascal hated, it was being called a stupid nickname in a stupid voice by a stupid, particular slowbro.

After the rousing scare from a delightful nap, Pascal's little, dottish eyes slanted down and contorted out of dismay and the searing brightness of a freshly dawned sun. Trying to tuck his stunt of vision and goodwill away, he said: "What do you want, Paul?" quite angrily, figurative veins bulging from his silky, round, drifloon skin. "Will you piss off if I let you carry me around?"

"It's ok b'lloon pal. I came widda friend tahday." dictated the matter-of-fact slowbro. At first, Pascal the drifloon took Paul's implication with a very measly grain of salt. Having disclosed feelings for a need of friends inadvertently during his walks with Paul, and having a modicum of gratitude for Paul's attempts to help pascal, Paul probably wanted to help his "friend". The slowbro's attempt was probably very shabby, though. In all likelyhood, Paul had brought him a rock or twig or something else which would insult Pascal's intelligence to the balloon.

Nonetheless, the little beads of Pascal's eyes could widen, for the sun's daily brightness had duly become accustomed to by the eyes of a grouchy looking, animate balloon. He first saw the contrast of a pristinely still and azure back bay next to a border of murky, soiled bog packed with algae. Pascal tried to in take the placent atmosphere and almost felt the circumfrence of ephemeral nirvana; he inhaled deeply, feeling his body expand, to immerse himself zenfully with the nature of the vast, inland lagoon. He was interrupted, however, by a sudden blatant blurb from the blaring slowbro: "C'mon! See your friend, B'lloon!"

"For the last time, my name is Pascal Jean-Pierre Montaigne the 4th Veillure! I'm not b'lloon. Get that in your dense skull already!" trumpeted the loud mouthed little balloon as he swooped in front of a big grinned hippo otter with what would be a scowl (if he had the facial features to accommodate; Pascal was a balloon, after all). As usual, Paul could roll with the punches of criticism because he was too dopy to give a shit. He just smiled and kept avid eyes on the lavender body of Pascal. Without words to focus on, Pascal's eyes drifted around, and spotted the hunk of keratin and metal in Paul's white-fingered mitts. He had brought a rock; go figure. There was something curious about the rock, though; Pascal could sense that something was inside! Pascal then tilted his light, airy body to the side in curiosity. "Uh...what's that?" inquired a suddenly invested, uncannily earnest Pascal.

"Ah. Dis yer friend." declared Paul. He set the husk on the ground. He turned around and then paced away from the willow tree. "You both can say hallo. Den I come for da walk. Seeya." and with that Paul's footsteps decreased in volume ever so slowly as he ambled away. Soon he was in the distance, out of sight and clearly considerate to a privacy necessary for the synthesis of synergy. Now there was just pascal and the shell.

Pascal could clearly deem the husk, in fact ,was not a rock, but a sort of shelled pokemon. Pascal didn't have a lick of experience with grounded pokemon. Furthermore, he did not have experience with shy individuals approaching him. Usually, the dull or malevolent were the people who would take the initiative to accost a seemingly bitter and unassuming pokemon. This time, however, Pascal had met a creature even more timid and shy than he. The balloon had to call the extrovert inside of him to try to address the potential friend.

*Poke*

Pascal's noodly cord lurched out across the void of air and "poked" the sizable shell bluntly, though with not much impact. However, it caused the organism inside to grunt nervously and shiver, with an unexpected bass in his voice (it was easy to tell that whatever was inside was in fact male). This was going to be tricky.

Pascal could see through grills in the shell a pair of quivering, tense eyes. "Jesus, man, I'm not gonna eat you or anything. I haven't eaten a thing in my life." only more timid whimpers from the bug ensued. No cigar. "You can at least see me, right?"

After a few moments, the shell rocked back and forth as if to nod: Progress.

"Do you at least want me to talk to you? I'm more than willing to let you sit there, but in all honesty you'll make yourself look like an imbecile if you keep your trap shut." came haughtily from Pascal, his modicum of French accent twanging on the back of his voice, making sure to sound somewhat condescending. Of course, Pascal didn't mean to be mean-spirited. He only wanted to yank an answer out of the snail with a bit of reverse psychology. The shell rocked back again in a hesitant nod.

"Alright, I'll tell you what." began Pascal, the french accent still very faint behind his voice causing Pascal to continue to sound narcissistic in his speech. "I'll talk to you if you talk to me. I want you to tell me your name." Pascal waited for a reply, and then...

"...I-I..d-don't have o-one." came in muffled, little stutters. Curious indeed; nearly everyone Pascal had met had some type of nomination.

"Well, why not?" inquired Pascal. Another 10 second wait ensued.

"...C-can't rememb-ber..."; goodness;Pascal was befriending an amnesiac!

"Huh. Well then..." Pascal dictated, blind sided by his friend's lack of memory (odd; Pascal described the shell as a friend at this point; he was never that swift to presume friendship) "A name is fairly necessary... Would you like a name?" the little thing nodded. "Remember, I'm not gonna respond to ya if you don't use your words.~" said Pascal teasingly.

"C-could you give me a name...please?" the shelmet asked soft spokenly.

"Alright." Pascal affirmed "What are you aiming for in a name? I don't imagine you would want something as inane as shelly." Pascal was conscious to the fact that he was trying to make a joke by suggesting shelly, but a chuckle from Pascal didn't ensue. Pascal was adherent to the philosophy that one should never laugh at their own joke; it would make one seem absorbed in how funny they were.

"W-well... I shouldn't ask...I'd probably want something really cool for myself...a-and I don't deserve a cool name." he laid his head down shamefully.

"Alright." suddenly interjected Pascal, sounding quite irked. "Listen up, scooter. I'd prefer if you didn't play the pity card on me; I feel sad too sometimes, but a person has to learn that sadness isn't exclusive to you or I. It's something that we all feel and there's no point in wallowing around in pity. It makes things worse and it doesn't send off a good impression." While Pascal lectured aggressively, he could observe the eyes in the grills tilt upward in sadness and fear. Stuttered sniffles. He was making the bug cry. Damnit.

Pascal sighed gently and figured that he had to clean up the mess he made. He subtly floated closer and called on a more sympathetic tone of voice. "Hey...there's no reason that we can't be sad sometimes. Like I said, I'm sad often because of how hard I can get hit with the shit stick sometimes...I mean, the closest thing I have to a friend is a pink idiot who walks me around and then you. Pretty much everyone is occupied, and for the most part they aren't keen to be friendly with a runt."

The shelmet sobbed gently, tilting his eyes towards Pascal after his second speech, which had considerably more pathos than his first. "I-I'm yer friend?" muttered the shelmet with a deep but shaky voice.

"Uh..." in his heart Pascal knew he had an earnest affection towards the shelmet. "Sure."

"A-alright...I'm sorry that I have to be sad"

"Don't be." Pascal tweeted phlegmatically. "you didn't do anything wrong; it's ok to be sad sometimes, we just can't be that way all the time."

"Well I sure as hell must have done something to deserve getting called a bitch by a beetle!" Finally, the shelmet imploded into loud bawls and wails.

"Oh..." Pascal was doubly dissapointed; he had just let his friend burst into tears, which he set out to avoid. Also, the snail's melancholy cries were unbearable. Time to bring out the big guns.

*hug *

Pascal did his best to wrap his strings around the wailing snail and to apply pressure in a makeshift hug. Somehow, Pascal was able to put his dignity at the bottom of his priorities.

"Shhhhh..." whispered Pascal, inducing the shelmet to try to suck up his tears. "You're fine with me...you can cry all you want...promise me that you'll be better after you do, though."

"W-w-why?..." the shelmet uttered in between quivering sniffles.

"Because I can't stand to see you sad." Pascal clenched the bug type more passionately and tenderly (the hug was completely platonic. This isn't going to progress into something corrupt. Please continue reading and understand that sometimes friends have to comfort eachother) "Do you wanna talk about what happened anymore?"

"Y-yuhuh..."

"Go ahead, then."

The sober snail breathed deeply, mustering composure. "W-well...I was told that I was gonna make a friend today...but that idiot Pink-thing wound up putting me with a beetle that tried to beat me up like a punching bag! It w-was really scary!" the shelmet had spoken his peace, and could continue sobbing like an 2 year old without a pacifier, and he did.

"Oh..." Pascal knew exactly who he was talking about: Roland the karrablast. "I think I know who you're talking about. His name is Roland and he's generally cruel to everyone. It's not because of you; I think you'd still get on his bad side even if you weren't a...bug type." the bug type's relentless cries were beginning to ebb.

"Y-you think so?..."

"Absolutely. Really, who cares about those sorts of people? If you have at least one person that means well, nothing that anybody else does really matters."

the shelled pokemon found that he could now withdraw his sorrow indefinitely. He couldn't believe that a complete stranger had done an excellent job of soothing what was once overbearing and crippling to the shelmet. "T-thankyou."

Pascal unwrapped his strings around the bug type and floated in front of the pokemon. "Feel better now?"the shelmet nodded coyly in reply. "Excuse me, I don't understand nods, remember?~" this time, the shelmet was more appreciative to Pascal's playful teasings. He smiled in his shell, and when Pascal saw that he had made the little snail smile, the balloon instantly felt gratified.

"I just feel pissy for how much of a downer I was for a little while there."

"Don't feel bad for that. After all, I feel sad, and sometimes all it takes to not be sad is to talk for a little bit." explained Pascal. "and if you ever feel that upset again, promise me that you'll come to Pascal first." the snail nodded, feeling content in being a gastropod for the first time and entrusting his feelings to a complete stranger.

"Alright," said Pascal as he straightened himself inadverdantly haughtily and tucked away his sentimental side, "we still have to give you a name...and to your request I won't make it _too_ utterly impressive." The shelmet nodded, somewhat less ginger now that he had gotten what had happened off of his shoulders. Pascal nodded as well and had a long, pensive "hmmm" that was vocalized as he paced around through the air. The name Roland stuck around in his head somewhat; he was familiar with it from a certain story that he heard around the evening campfire like a runt squeezing its head in between its brothers to get food (it was a shame; Pascal was very fond of stories). He couldn't remember the exact context of the name, but Roland was described as a big, powerful knight; he was probably a really cool pokemon, too, and that made the fact that a belittling beetle was named Roland seem kinda petty. Pascal also remembered, though, that in the stories, Roland's close friend was named...ulivieur? It sounded foreign, but the shoe fit at least in the balloon's mind. The name seemed a little bit pathetic, like Winston or Herman, but also hinted at being somewhat cool and edgy, and it provided a fitting contrast to the friendship that Ulivier and Roland might have shared; the two bugs clearly dislike eachother! "How about Ulivier?" asked Pascal.

The shelmet stared with timid eyes at the balloon; his eyes twitched around anxiously, nervous that the world might explode if he chose wrongly. "...s-sure..." said Ulivier.

"Alrighty." Pascal nodded approvingly, providing defusal to Ulivier's fear of the world exploding.

"B-but please...make sure you call me my full name if you uh...do call me."

"What do you mean by that?"

"W-well...it's a little pet peeve of mine," pragmatically stated Ulivier, "I can't stand it when people don't call me by my full name. Diminutives diminish, after all." Pascal caught wind of Ulivier's little motto; he too was frequently upset by folks addressing him with stupid nicknames (namely "b'lloony, there was a stupid nickname). He nodded again in consent

"Sure. I don't even think that you can make a nickname out of Ulivier."

"T-thankyou." murmured Ulivier, once again his eyes drifted around nervously, keen to avoid the eye contact which he deemed unsettling. "Sorry for troubling you, sir."

Mildly frustrated with Ulivier's general demeanor, the balloon sighed. "You don't have to say sorry and you don't have to say sir. I'm your friend. I'm more than willing to lend a hand." Pascal realized that he didn't exactly have limbs or hands outside of his little strings. "Strings I mean," Pascal blurted,"...you get the picture."

"Thanks."

From there, a long silence predominated the shade under the tree which housed the snail and balloon.

"Don't you get sweaty from being stuck under that helmet all the time?"

"Not really; it's kinda comfy actually." Ulivier shifted around in his shell a bit, to maximize the mentioned comfort, "I'm not gonna lie, though. It is kinda hot and slimy in here."

"Why don't you open up?"

Confronted with a sudden challenge to his literal comfort zone, Ulivier gasped under his breath, his pupils shrinking in fear for a brief moment. Something inside of his new, unmastered instinct put him against letting his helmet lid up. "I'm afraid something will eat me." Ulivier put that instinct into words.

Pascal's beady eyes flattened in dismay. His patience was being stretched. "Hey Ulivier."

"Y-yes?"

"Do me a favor."

Ulivier nodded.

"Take a look around for anything that might go ahead and eat you."

Ulivier swiveled around on his stumps the best he could.

"Do you see anything that could possibly eat you?"

"You."

Pascal screamed inside, only sighing on the outside and barely hanging onto his composure. "I'm a damn balloon. Escargot isn't exactly appetizing to ghost types, or any food for that matter because we're dead. _Tu comprends_?" Pascal uttered the last two words _dans Francais_ masterfully, both with pronunciation and a typically French disgust towards both foreigners and plebian incompetence.

"O-ok."

"So if I'm not going to eat you and there's nothing else that might eat you, what's the point of clamming up?" Ulivier didn't know.

"I dunno."

"What do you have to lose then? Open up; I'm interested in seeing what's inside that shell of yours."

There was no doubt in Ulivier's mind that his inhibitions were rooted in his self. It was time to pull his panties up and come out of his shell. Closing his eyes and somehow ignoring the tremendous apprehension in his id, he slowly hoisted up his helmet lid like a heavy drawbridge. Pascal could now see the green and red flesh in his body, and the outrageously puckered and huge lips connected to a slender proboscis. Pascal chuckled silently; restraining himself from calling his snail-pal on kissy lips in fear that he'll feel embarrassed, and will proceed to clamp up and/or cry.

"See? That wasn't too difficult," said Pascal as agreeably as his voice would allow him to sound. He allowed Ulivier to adjust to being out of his shell, noticing how he shifted around to view the area. "How is it?"

"Uh...to be honest it's pleasant." Ulivier shifted his eye contact towards Pascal. "It certainly isn't as damp."

"Good." cheeped Pascal happily. It took a while before either had anything furthermore to say; Pascal was the one to break the intermittent silence. "So...is there anything aside from your little scuffle from Roland that you remember?"

"Not much...I met that Paul guy a little while back." again, silence between the two pokemon lingered. "Uh...do you know what a human is?"

Inquisitively, Pascal's brow tilted at the mention of the word. "Human? I've heard the term before...come to think of it my big brothers mention the word frequently."

"Uh...big brothers?" Ulivier presumed that 'big brother' implied something unsettling.

"Yes, drifloons don't have progenitors; either we capture souls and convert them into more drifloons or somehow become animate. One way or another, however, my tribe finds new members." Ulivier nodded in reply after the explanation.

"Uh...real quick...what's a drifloon?"

Pascal was confused for a few moments, but then remembered that he was dealing with an amnesiac. "Well...you're looking at one!" Pascal's eyes flared up with cheerful pride as he pointed his tendrils towards himself. "I'm a balloon pokemon, of course. I was brought into the world some 18 years ago." Pascal presumed that Ulivier understood all of the above, and once again, silence sailed because of how generally passive to conversation he was. The relationship would be tricky if Pascal wasn't a master at sparking up conversation.

"Jog my memory again...what exactly is a human?" began Pascal, thirsty for clarification.

"Well...its sorta foggy but I'll try my best to remember." Ulivier looked away and hummed pensively, pacing about some and trying to gather the details up. "They walk on two legs...they don't have any fur or scales or anything...they can write...and they wear clothes for some reason."

"Clothes?!" suddenly blurted out Pascal. "Who would have the indecency to do such a thing?! It's unnatural!" another awkward silence

"S-sure." uttered Ulivier.

"Come to think of it," restarted Pascal," There's this guy up in Bailegna that uh...is sort of a guru on pretty much everything; he's really smart, even by reuniclus standards. Dr...," Pascal's memory of idolized thinkers never failed him, he only feigned forgetfullness to seem coy. "Seamus Carrol."

"So he'll know a thing or two about what a human is?"

"Absolutely!"

"How far away is Bologna-...Bail..egna?" Ulivier subtly blushed as he fumbled on pronunciation

"Well...its a few hundred kilos northwest of here, actually." Pascal scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Then how the hell are we supposed to get there?"

"That's the thing; we don't get there." said Pascal confidently. "All we have to do is send a letter up there. The pelliper service is great in prinemport; and its a 3 hour walk from here to the post office, tops."

"Uh...that Paul guy mentioned that he was gonna take you 'on a walk' or something like that." interjected Ulivier phlegmatically.

"Yeah...I'm not all that partial to that habit of his." said Pascal, wincing through the way he spoke. "All he does is carry me by my string and walk with me he's a three year old; we talk sometimes but its ultimately very humiliating. Pretty much everyone has a bad impression of me and my big brothers don't exactly admire me for being an idiot's plaything. It isn't like they did before but..." Pascal nipped the bud quite well. Had he talked any further he would have surely felt terrible about himself. "Anyway, I imagine that we're on the same page on our thoughts about Paul?" inquired the nearly depressed balloon.

"He's definitely a weirdo, yeah." agreed Ulivier slowly, "He blared on about how much he liked pecha berries for what...15 minutes? I don't even know what a pecha berry is. I'm not really in the mood to say hi to that guy again."

"I'll tell you what," Pascal said. If Ulivier had ears, they would have perked up in curiosity. "It's not that long of a walk to prinemport and we can probably sneak by Paul easily enough because of uh...how imperceptive he is."

"How'd he spot me lying in the middle of a bog then?" Pascal wasn't in the mood for deep thought, moreover to think about Paul outside of the context of getting away from him.

"We'll ask questions later, but chances are that if we walk now, he'll miss us and spend the entire day waiting for us to 'come back' for our walk. Alright?" Pascal performed his signature nod-rock. "What are we waiting for then? Allons'y!" and with that, Pascal drifted away moderately, suddenly realizing the freedom of floating around. The shelmet could only yelp in reply and realize that it wasn't exactly easy to walk quickly on 2 little stumps. In spite of how slow the two might have gone, they had easily evaded Paul, who was busy tearing grass from the ground and snacking on it.

Roland the karrablast wasn't sure how long he had been out cold for, but he certainly ached in a few places after waking up. Fainting was never pleasant for any pokemon, and unfortunately, whenever Roland was stood up to, he usually fainted. Therefore, the karrablast went through the motions of being obliterated whenever someone had the guts to grind him into a pulp. Only when he rolled over and looked at the comically accurate imprint of him on the hard clay did he realize how hard he had been pummeled by Paul.

Footsteps caught the attention of the disagreeable beetle, and he rolled over once more to try to see the source of humble little waddles. Oh goodness. It was the shelmet. He was with that asshat b'lloonie that hung out with Paul. Not surpising that he took to another of his tools. Round 2 was impending as he stood up and charged once more at the duo, though not too close. Roland understood that attacking from close got him nowhere. However, when he yelled visciously at the little ass, he got results. He stood from the fringe of the road...

"HAVIN' FUN WITH YOUR LITTLE FRIEND THERE, ASSFACE?!" came demeaningly from Ulivier's side. The shelmet glanced in spite of himself, and with big, flat eyes came a familiar menace to the shelmet. Ulivier abided completely by the instinct that the karrablast wanted to eat him in addition to making him feel awful. "WANNA STAY OVER THERE AND COWER FOR YOUR BITCH MOTHER?! Y'ALL AIN'T SHIT, YOU HEAR!" Roland certainly didn't have the nerve to use that mouth around anyone else, in fact, Roland abhored foul language typically. Then again, Roland was presently a very hungry little bug. He continued very intense and spooky eye contact with Ulivier Leer. Ulivier clamped up and shuddered, nearly crying.

"Shit..." muttered Pascal concernedly, turning to the once again incapacitated snail. "I'll handle this. Sit tight and before you know it he'll be running for the hills. All you have to do to deal with Roland is give him a challenge." Ulivier nodded as The drifloon floated towards the karrablast, looking down at the petty bug.

"Listen here, scooter." this time, Pascal tried to sound as indignant and french as possible, to come of prissy and above karrablast (and Pascal was). "I'm in no mood to fight, but If you're up to see stars, then you can go ahead and try to get by me."

"HAH!" Roland smiled and pointed his stubby arm at Pascal. "YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH ASSFACE, NOW AREN'T YOU?! SOME STANDARDS YOU'VE GOT PASCAL, AIN'T THAT RIGHT, CUNT?!" Roland eyed Ulivier maliciously again at the end of his rant Leer.

"Fine." Pascal swiveled around the beetle, giving him a direct path to Ulivier, who stared at Roland like a stantler in the headlights. "It's your choice, you can go toe to toe with mon amie if you so wish." Roland yelled as he charged towards Ulivier.

"I'll even give you a boost." Roland suddenly felt an overwhelming draft come behind him, which only grew as time went on. He moved faster, certainly, but as Roland exerted air on him further, he was lifted on his feet and overshot his target by about 50 feet gust. Roland landed in the middle of the lagoon, and struggled to swim in the murky water on the border of the lagoon. "Have fun swimming with the magikarp; they've got quite the taste for karrablast!~" and with a that bit of sarcasm the duo trotted off quite contently. It would take about 30 minutes for Roland to doggy paddle back to the slimy, marsh, if he wasn't eaten by fish before he got to shore. The joke was on him, he realized this as he clambered for air and struggled for land; eating shelmet was the last thing on his mind.

It would be 3PM by the time that Ulivier the shelmet and Pascal the drifloon would find themselves at the gate of Prinemport.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Several Pokemon Strive to Apprehend a Devious Misdreavus

Jane felt particularly proud of the new satchel at her side. The Pomeg guild was gratuitous with their products, stuffing the little lime bag at Jane's side with everything from trail mix to nautical almanacs (Jane neither knew that she had a nautical almanac, nor did she know what the word "nautical" even meant). Thus, she could grin like a Cheshire cat knowing that there wouldn't be a thing in the world threatening the little skitty.

She wandered under the looming branches of the grepa berry orchards which belted Prinemport along with the hills, naked otherwise for the scrubbish grass that grew atop them like 5 o'clock fuzz. It was a good thing that the orchards had thick, broad leaves. They made for good shade in an otherwise searingly hot day. Jane was used to the shade. She hardly ever left her house, and hers was typically very well shaded. It was an amenity that she shared with her house, which was rarely vacated by Jane. She had probably only been outside her house for 9 times, but she was rarely bored to the confines of her house because of how huge and mazelike it was.

Jane's big, triangular ears suddenly caught wind of a rustling by a bush, and she turned her head towards the source of the noise, curious as to what caused the sound. She perceived the causality soon afterwards: a slate colored, floating miasma in the shape of a head with a pair of eyes hovered towards her from the bush. The misdreavus snaked towards the skitty, becoming translucent as it strafed across the illuminated apertures in the tree's shade. He grinned slyly; he must be awfully happy to try to acquaint himself with Jane. "Hello there," it said with an unsettlingly gentle coo.

"Hiya." chirped Jane happily; everyone around her deserved to be greeted with an equal degree of courtesy and tact. That was one of the things that her daddy taught her. Even though the misdreavus looked and smelled kinda foul, he meant well. "Who are you?" she continued, tilting her head and tail demurely.

"Me? I don't consider that all too important." explained the misdreavus, still as unsettlingly suave.

"Why did you stop me? I've got somewhere to be!"

"You're busy? Well, that's quite typical of people from the Pomeg guild..." Jane's mouth widened in a gasp; the misdreavus knew just where she was from!

"H-how did you know?! I just came from the guild and I'm gonna go train before I can go on adventures with this really cool guy! And I'm gonna practice fighting and stuff and-"

"Just a moment, hun." impeded the misdreavus urgently, "You aren't about to tell me that you haven't been trained in fighting before?!" the misdreavus' exclamation was watered down, so not to break his facade of goodwill. "There are some very, very, very scary people that might take advantage of you if you don't have the right equipment!" Emeril the misdreavus was surprised that he was getting this far.

"Ohmigosh!" the skitty yelped as she cowered from a suddenly fear of ambush around all sides. Her tail twitched cutely in anxiety.

"Tsk tsk. I've seen it happened many times before, and it breaks my heart every time to see a new adventurer waltz out with their dreams of being the next Team Royal thrown in the toilet as someone pilfers their goods. I'll let you in on a little secret, though, Ms..."

"Jane! Ms. Jane of house Apollinarus!" Jane tried to muster her front paw to her forehead in a dainty salute; she was an adventurer, of course. "I'd love to hear a secret, sir!"

"Yes..." the misdreavus slid up beside the little cat ears of the skitty so that he could whisper softly to her "I'll make sure that your belongings are packed extra safe into your satchel, there~"

"Thankyou, mister!" chirped Jane quite loudly, nearly rupturing Emeril's hearing.

"A-alright...now all I need you to do is give me your bag, and I'll go ahead and organize what needs to be stowed away extra carefully. And If you have any jewelry hidden here, lemme know so that I can hide them even better~..."

"Hey Pascal?" muttered Ulivier in between heavy, tired steps under the shade of a grepa berry orchard.

"What?" asked Pascal in reply, his voice failing to intonate upwards.

"How far away is Prinemport?...M-my legs hurt."

"We're about 30 minutes away. We'll be there soon enough." silence ensued between the two for a few moments.

"It's not like we can't turn back at this point," continued Pascal, "There's that Paul guy over there."

"A-and Roland," Ulivier shuddered.

Pascal shrugged "It'll be alright. We can't go wrong if we go to Prinempport. It's a nice place from what I hear."

"Wait...you've never been to this big city-" the two suddenly paused, as they spotted a pink cat staring attentively at a little ghost. He was sorting through a bantam bag meticulously. The two were equally curious as to what was going on, and approached them. They were unintentionally furtive "Pascal?"

"Hm?" the drifloon said, quiet to maintain a novel stealth.

"What's that?"

"A misdreavus. They tend to be pretty rambunctious."

Preffering observation to confrontation, the duo stood behind a grepa tree to spy on the scenario.

"...adventurer's manual...compass...trail mix..." They realized, as they observed the misdreavus, how dementedly he would list off all of the items, inferring that his enamor with another person's possesions was a _mite_ bit suspicious.

"Do you know that guy?" asked a skeptical shelmet.

"No. Like I said, I've never been around Prinemport... Somethin' about him stinks to high heaven, though." the two continued to watch and wish for popcorn.

"...and you're positive that there isn't any spare jewelry in the sides?" asked Emeril, his suave diminished and replaced with the fastidious obsession of a drug addict.

"Yep!" tweeted Jane, completely imperceptive to the demented expression of the misdreavus. "But that isn't including this here necklace." she raised her paw to a broach around her neck made of a silvery, sheeny platinum. Engraved in low resolution was a beautiful, detailed sculpture of Arceus, eyes made of a beautiful jade imported far from somewhere foreign. Emeril was instantly hypnotized by.

"Y-yes...very pretty indeed...and prone to theft..." his mouth never shut out of sheer enchantment; he had hit gold. "You should g-give that to me so I can stow it away...somewhere very...very safe..." he smiled grimly, though his eyes were just as entranced with how beautiful (and expensive) the necklace would be.

"Alright!" her apprehensile tail reached up to the back of the necklace, then handing the priceless broach over to Emeril, who grasped it in his mouth eagerly. Emeril panted out of extreme joy. Though, he suddenly noticed the breathing of two individuals at 6 o'clock. He gulped heavily, purple miasma beading on his forehead in anxiety.

"M-may I help you?..." said Emeril as he turned around with an expression of terror mixed with lingering euphoria on his face.

Pascal and Ulivier stood behind him, faces in subtle scowls. "We're fine." said Ulivier passive-aggressively.

"We were just curious as to what you're doing with her necklace...mind explaining?" his prissy, exaggerated french accent resounded through Emeril, suddenly speechless from fear. He began to formulate a plan B in his head: run. "I'm afraid that you're going to have to give me an answer in 5 seconds," said Pascal confrontingly

"or else we'll make you," added Ulivier. no response came from Emeril aside from his stuttered, horrified laughter.

"five...four...three-"

a shuddering bush interrupted Pascal, attracting the attention of everyone on the scene. A humanoid figure leaped out of the brush and yelled, setting his aim on Emeril, who immediately enacted plan B. He attempted to hover away as fast as his body could manage, but before he could even move away from his place, he was struck with a fist that felt like iron. Emeril careened forward, twirling and hurting as he spiraled out of his spot with a bit of help from his aggressor: a hitmonchan pursuit. The ghost was able to readjust himself after a short flight, and with his regained stability he could move on his own accord; he backed away from the group and phased through a tree, going out of sight with the pilfered broach! The other 3 weren't as stunned at the sudden escape of Emeril, rather, they were impressed by how imposingly the fighting type was able to pummel the petty pickpocket. He looked down, grunting in disappointment.

"WOAHTHATWASOAWESOMEMISTERHANNIBAL." said Jane as she yelped and hopped in standing ovation, "Youdidayellandgotthatguytorunandthenhedidbuthenyoupunchedhimlike-"

"The more important matter is that you were just robbed, Ms. Appollinarus," solemnly declared the English accented hitmonchan,"I'm responsible for letting him run away with your belongings," He sighed once more "...and that means I'm gonna have to fast for a week now." (time to put getting hondew berries on his schedule)

"You two!" The hitmonchan suddenly pointed towards Pascal and Ulivier. Both of them were taken aback by their shoutout. "Pursue the misdreavus right now, I can't afford to return Ms. Appolinarus with an object missing."

"B-but we were j-just looking-" said Pascal, somehow even more timid than Ulivier.

"Exactly! You could have easily stopped the misdreavus had you confronted him more assertively," the hitmonchan cracked his knuckles, "Clean up your mistake right now and I won't incapacitate you." after all, his ice punch and fire punch were rusty...he needed practice on actual targets. The two were too intimidated to object, and set out into the woods with fear welling up in their throats. "I can't afford to delay Ms. Appolinarus' training." said the hitmonchan as the duo paced into the forest. The boxer turned towards Jane

"Why did you scare off that ghost? He wanted to help me."

"I'll explain that to you later, Ms. Appolinarus; now we've to repack your satchel..."

Richter had slept in. He was scolded for sleeping. Of course, the treecko resented the punishment tremendously. Farming along the fringes of some of the more dense, overgrown riparian areas of Prinemport outskirts was how the sylvia family made their meager living. If Richter had slept in every day, that would mean that their grepa berry harvest wouldn't be able to be sold up the nose to the snobby bourgeoisie of Arcadeau or Prinemport.

It wasn't exactly a stable living; the fat priests which used grepa berry juice as a panacea were very particular about what sorts of wines did the trick. Richter's family's poison leaned on the mediocre side of the spectrum, however, and the clergy would only accept the wine on terms that everyone in the family burned the candle at both ends to make B- grade wine. One morning not spent monitoring the fermentation of grepa berry juice could spell bankruptcy for the entire Sylvia family.

Richter's sloth warranted that he was to arduously pluck every weed off of the grepa berry trees, including the icky mushrooms and fungus which were particularly disgusting to the treecko. Richter utterly hated scrounging about for any weeds; he could be spending this time doing much more important things, namely being lazy. If he wasn't being lazy he was probably doing the opposite: seeking self improvement. Usually this meant that he would educate himself; perhaps spending his pocket money on an outdated textbook or doing a few pull-ups here and there.

The treecko would probably spend the entire day working at purging pests from the bread and butter of the family: grepa trees, and then going into town to grab cakes made of more palatable fruits. No time for his hobbies, though~. This would be the last time that Richter would tucker himself out at night by sneaking out of the house to play cards.

Richter suddenly detected a whirring from the left of himself. Over in a grass clearing zoomed the apparition of a ghost lacking a body, something shiny and probably valuable in his teeth as he manically fled from an unseen pursuer. The treecko didn't have to look to guess that Emeril the misdreavus was at stealing again. Richter didn't care to stop the petty thievery because it was petty; Richter was too busy to stop the thievery, and stealing was how Emeril made his living. after all; everyone needs a job. About 5 minutes later he caught glance of the people that were presumably after him: a drifloon and a shelmet cruised tiredly after a pokemon far superior in speed. They were closer to Richter, and at one point they glanced towards him.

"Excuse me!" yelled the drifloon, far away and with a detectable twang of French accent in his voice. Based on his accent, the drifloon was most likely the son of some snooty cleric, and his dad would probably be more than willing to patronize their vineyard if his son gave a thumbs up. Time to make a good impression.

Richter slid off of his trees and brushed off any dust or filth that might have accumulated on him. He ambled as professionally as possible towards the duo. "Welcome to Sylvia family vineyards; we've been in the business for 200 years and would be more than willing to serve you." Richter had no clue how he was able to talk like a high-end sales clerk; it disgusted him nonetheless.

"Yeah, we need some help figuring out where a little ghost pokemon went, he had a broach with him and we're trying to get it." Pascal explained, huffing under his breath; oxygen debt affects balloons.

"Oh..." Richter remembered that they probably had no interest in grepa wine. "The misdreavus went that way." Richter extended a bluntish claw towards the forest. "It's probably pointless to follow him, though; he's gonna end up cornered in the Shiftry village."

*lightbulb *

"WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I SHOULD BE AFTER HIM!" clamored the treecko, scaring Ulivier and Pascal and going on all fours at ludicrous speed. He trailed off at least 40 feet ahead by the time that the snail and the balloon had realized that they were had competition. They dashed just as quickly, Ulivier finding that he was suddenly very capable of moving rapidly because of urgency. All three dashed into the overgrowth of the dangerous, bug infested forest North of Prinemport...

Inrinara the nuzleaf was the most intolerant to nonsense in his village, perhaps even more than the most devout and austere elders in the village. Some of the them fawned over his inflexibility to nuissance; it meant that Inrinara was pious to training and honing his body so that he could administrate in the place of elder shiftry one day. Others figured that Inrinara would be the end of the village, because he was inflexible. He refused to stick to anything other than the most strict of tribal ritual; avoiding berries with even the tiniest filth because his body wasn't worthy of "trifling additives". The tribe could never live by Inrinara's standards, lest the only extant of Shiftry Culture outside of the East be decimated by a decadent despot. Favor always found some respect for Inrinara; there was a guarantee that people seeking the highest level of orthodoxy would find and worship that epitome.

Too bad that the demographic was a flock of seedot.

Inrinara lazed on a branch and grass whistled away, glancing occasionally to see his seedot practice balancing on a branch only a few inches thick. The more surefooted recruits could balance on the natural pole with relative ease, and Inrinara grinned at those members.. soon they might be able to be shown off to the favorable elders, who would be quite sated with Inrinara's capabilities in leadership.

"Good." chirped Inrinara as a seedot managed to cross the short treespan via the pole. The sound of victorious laughter from the seedot across the branch was appreciated. Most of the time, Irinara's ears were serenaded by a shrill grunt of pain from the majority as they collided with the dirt clearing far below the treeline. At one point, a particularly battered seedot approached Inrinara, eyes tilted upward pathetically as he coughed daintily.

"M-may I take a break, sir?" it asked gingerly, "My back hurts and I-"

"Am a huge disappointment to my leader?" said the nuzleaf condescendingly "I'll tell you what: my ears hurt after listening to your whining. I had to go through the motions, too, and unless all of you do the same, then your chances of becoming as excellent as I am are slim to none." Inrinara's "pep talk" didn't motivate or soothe the seedot at all. The seedot marched back to the bridge to start over, nonetheless. Inrinara sighed, he was just subjected to three of his least favorite things: impudence, whining, and lecturing in reply.

The march continued like clockwork. Inrinara's grass-flute performance was interrupted. He suddenly sensed a presence in a bush below: faint, but easily detectable by the honed senses of the nuzleaf. In the blink of an eye, what was once a flute was converted into a razor sharp kunai, lodged painfully into Richter's heel. The treecko was rendered immobile; even minute movements from his pierced foot resulted in unbearable agony on behalf of Richter. Inrinara casually hopped from his seat among tree branches, Removed Inrinara's restraining kunai and grasped Richter by the chest.. Inrinara was sure to scold his intruder through intense eye contact. It was effective; Richter grinned guiltily, chuckling under his breath and praying to god that Inrinara would give him mercy.

"Who wants to watch me beat an outsider into a pulp?" addressed Inranari to his followers, the entirety of which cheered affirmatively. "Very well. Go ahead and form a barrier around all the exits." Seedots rained down from the trees and formed a blockade to the nuzleaf's expectations. Inranari dropped the treecko on the earthy turf. Inrinara cracked his knuckles

Richter was in checkmate. He knew that he couldn't plead to decline Inrinara's challenge, lest the nuzleaf catch on to the idea that Richter might be in a hurry to do something else. Therefore, Richter stood up, and readied himself to go toe to toe with his rival. This wasn't the first time that Richter faced off against Inrinara, but this time the heat was on; he'd have an allegiance of 6 year old seedots jeering him if he lost this match. Maybe the preface of an audience was for the best, Richter worked best under pressure.

"After all...I'd hate to not deliver on behalf of my following." at that, the nuzleaf charged: go time.

The two leaped at each other, both appearing to phase out of reality as they clashed during this ephemeral lack of existence, Richter bashed the Inrinara with his tail quick attack and Inrinara got close enough to the treecko's ears so that a clap would give the defender an instant migraine. Inrinara did so fake out and caused Richter to stand staggered. Ininara then focused, summoning razor sharp leaves from his palms and sending them flying towards Richter razor leaf. Luckily, Richter's migraine lost its effect just as the leaves started to fly, and he was able to position himself on a tree precisely, so to avoid any contact with the leaves. It left him locked in that position, however; if he moved that could spell paper cuts on his limbs!

Inrinara inhaled intently, leering intensely at the treecko and clasping his hands. He inhaled, causing his oaken body to bulk up in strength growth in addition to making it sturdy harden. His eyes flared up with energy, turning bright yellow as he huffed out a yellow, sporish smoke nature power: tall grass towards Richter. The razor sharp leaves had lost some of their sharpness, and Richter was able to dash past the flaccid leaves. He sidestepped the powder and got behind Inrinara, then Richter clinched the nuzleaf under his arms and pushed him into the lingering powder, causing paralysis in his Inrinara.

Richter pushed Inrinara against the tree and began to throw punches at his handicapped opponent. In spite of limited mobility, Inrinara avoided most of Richter's blows. Richter, growing tired with his inability to hit his opponent, was glad when he caught a critical hit: he pinched Inrinara's nose as hard as he could and sucked the life out of it. "NOT MY F!#%!#$ NOSE!"absorb. It caused uproar from a majority of the preteen audience. The act of clasping a nuzleaf's nose was an incredible desecration and especially painful to one's ego, and therefore Inranara's Achilles heel.

Now riled up by his previous victory, Richter found the strength to put Inrinara in his arms and clamber up the tree-trunk rapidly, ignoring the fatigue of lugging up a woody shinobi completely. At the top of a branch, he laid Inrinari over his shoulders and hopped down; he had seen this technique used by throh's, and wanted to give it a shot.

Richter wasn't good at being overly cocky, however.

Midway through the descent, Inrinari had lost his paralysis, and realized that he was headed straight for a broken spine The nuzleaf was far more jaded to aerial grappling then Richter, and regained control right before the two hit the ground. Inrinara jumped up and stomped on Richter, creating a massive indent in the ground. Dust flew up everywhere; the only thing that landed on the ground intact was Inrinara. He wiped his hands and turned around to reface the treecko, though he found himself confused afterwards. The imprint of a fallen treecko embellished the ground, sans the treecko!

Richter capitalized on Inrinara's confusion. He suddenly materialized from behind the and threw a viscious kick straight towards Inrinara quick attack , causing the nuzleaf to stutter in his stance. Richter followed up with a fierce uppercut pound and a leaping haymaker aimed at Inrinara's head pound. After he was struck twice, the nuzleaf grew wise to Richter's attacks, and as the treecko aimed for Inranara's noggin, his fist was suddenly cut with a sharpened leaf-dagger which Inrinara had produced. The two could reassume offensive stances.

Inrinara punched pound the Richter's fists; the treecko intercepted intercepted the nuzleaf's with another punch pound. The two continued pounding at each other's attacks until Inrinari stepped on Richter's foot, clapping in his face to stun him fake out Standing dizzy for a few moments, the treecko didn't see Inrinara breathe deeply and clasp his hands once more, his eyes turning a vehement white. Inrinara leaped into the air and put his hands apart; they filled with a green, glowing sphere of energy. "これは私の先祖の力です!" yelled Inrinara as he let the energy ball fly straight for the treecko, who was not conscious enough to evade it nature power: forest and was sent hurling into a juvenile oak. It broke in half from the impact.

Behind the demolished oak was revealed a particular drifloon and shelmet, who made startled eye contact with the Inrinara's legion after the tree was destroyed. They interpreted Inrinara's vengeful facial expression well; his anger meant that they weren't welcome in the forest. It was best for the two to make a mad dash away from the scene, and they fled further into the forest. Inrinara didn't appreciate being left in the dust.

"Don't just stand there!" He barked, "get the intruders!" and the seedot did their best to trail after the tracks of the trespassers. Inrinara stood still, he had yet to deal the final blow to Richter. Sadly, the treecko was not laying among the debris of the fallen tree. Inrinara wasn't keen to fall for another quick attack, and he stood ready for Richter to phase in with another attack. He didn't notice the sound of munching high above the trees. Inrinara looked up towards the dissonance. Richter had just gorged himself on oran berries, and smugly looked towards his rival.

"Never forget to pack a lunch, stiff-neck!" said Richter, darting along the canopy of the forest to pursue the misdreavus. Inrinara grimaced and followed suit.

Ulivier wasn't sure how he was able to run so fast. All he had was little stumps to waddle down with at most, but for some reason he was able to reach a speed which was unexpectedly fast to avoid stampeding seedot. Granted, they didn't do a very good job at following Ulivier and Pascal. Some lacked the experience or leg length hop over a log to continue the chase, resulting in a traffic jam. Some forgot that there was a creek to the side and accidentally ran in its current, causing them to be swept down the brook like feeble leaves. The particularly incompetent simply fell flat on their faces because they ran too quickly. There was a huge plethora of seedot, at least thirty. Their significance? Ulivier and Pascal couldn't slow down, and neither could the seedot. Nobody reduced their velocity; as such, everyone had their quota for exercise fulfilled in five minutes

One of them latched onto the adornment of Ulivier's hood. Startled, he instinctively turned around and spat purple poison over 5 of the most adept members of the seedot squadron acid, causing them all to trip and others to trip over them . They formed a huge blockade next to the stream. Some managed to hop over the wall and continue pursuit, others had fainted, and some even drifted on unconsciously in the stream. It thinned out the multitude to about twenty. Ulivier and Pascal still weren't exempt from running away; if anything, they splinter group raised the stakes; the others slowed them down.

Sharp stones on the bank ahead meant that Ulivier and Pascal could slow down. Ulivier's feet were armored, Pascal had no feet, thereby allowing them to traverse over the caltrops with ease. The seedot weren't as lucky, about half of them couldn't surpass the minefield of sharp rocks and hopped around away from it. Those that realized their pain midway were the most unfortunate; they had the furthest distance to go before they weren't on rocky ground!

As the two of them coursed on, however, they suddenly reached a dead end. A sharp cliff separated them from higher ground. Ulivier glared at it with critical eyes. "I can't jump over that."

"Good job," droned Pascal, "You have a pair of eyes." Ulivier scrutinized the stream to the side, only to find a roaring, white water cataract.

"We can't go through the stream."

"Again, good job-"

"I didn't ask for your opinion!" roared Ulivier, annoyed by Pascal's sarcasm and the thin troupe of incoming seedot. Ulivier sighed, the seedot were about twenty meters ahead. "Gimme a moment." With the whites of the seedot's eyes now visible, Ulivier sprayed a torrent of caustic liquid on the calvalry acid. The flimsy seedot all groaned in agony and tumbled into the stream, conveniently clearing the poison off of their tender, woody bodies. "That's that," Ulivier nodded pridefully. He felt Pascal tap his shoulder apprehensively.

"Why the long face?"

"L-look ahead, Ulivier" Ulivier's face matched Pascal when he saw the reinforcements; a literal, writhing mass of acorn pokemon storming along the brookside like a terrible beast.

Ulivier's visor twitched. "C-can we panic now?" Ulivier was slapped.

"I can't let you do that, Ulivier," lectured Pascal.

"A-are you damn dense?!" said Ulivier, his voice becoming high and timid. "W-we're trapped!"

*lightbulb *

"No we aren't." said Pascal, quite calmly and matter-of-factly. "Just stand still...I have an idea." The two could hear the ferocious (but adorable) war cries of raging seedot. The blitzkrieg was mere feet ahead when pascal inflated and then blew tumultuous gust of wind on Ulivier, causing both of them to fly to the sides from the recoil gust. The seedot were great at running, but hadn't mastered the art of stopping; they rammed into the cliff face. A snowball effect ensued, and the seedot piled up against the scarp to form a makeshift incline.

(Pascal has advanced to level 9. Ulivier has advanced to level 6.)

Pascal hovered over the brook, his eyes fixated on Ulivier's limp, wavering visor. The drifloon hovered tepidly towards Ulivier, eyes tilted upwards. "Are you alright?" implored Pascal gingerly. Ulivier nodded feebly. "Can you make it up those stairs and get out?" again, a nod, this time accompanied by Ulivier standing up and walking feebly towards the massive pileup. Ulivier stumbled and landed on his bevor, grunting. Tears fell out of his eyes, rustled like dewdrops from leaves in spite of the shelmet. Startled, Pascal acted on instinct; he hugged Ulivier and patted his shell tenderly.

"D-do you have a cloth? I need to wipe my eyes." Pascal reached to his neck, but found that his green bandanna was gone. His velvetine body was the only cloth to his name. Pascal edged towards Ulivier awkwardly and scrubbed the tears and moisture off of Ulivier's eyes with his head. "T-thankyou."

"Don't mention it, pal." Pascal pat his buddy on the back to rouse him from his pain. "Wanna walk it out?" Ulivier nodded, getting up on his feet and walking. Pascal prodded him up the seedot stairs gently with his tendrils. "I'm sorry that I-"

"Better hurt than dead..." Pascal's mouth hung open, as if the oriface's purpose was to absorb Ulivier's adage.

"I-I just feel bad that I had to send you flying."

"Hey," said Ulivier, exerting himself to look complacent. "I went pretty fast right there...that was kinda fun." More tears fell out of Ulivier's eyes.

Lucky for Richter, he was already jaded to running through trees at high speed. He was used to clambering through canopy; Richter had been exposed to doing so as a child playing climbing trees, it was in his primal, treecko instinct. Before the days of harvesting grepa berries endlessly for the Sylvania family, Richter spent time climbing around on grepa trees and bushes. It was his own jungle gym; every treecko alive was instinctively partial to taking to trees. Little did Richter reckon that it would ultimately be necessary to him in situations like this, when he could hear Inrinara pacing beneath him on grassy ground, visciously taunted Inrinara.

Certainly, the nuzleaf would never stoop so low as to try to resort to using healing methods; that was the only thing that stood in his mind. The lowly invader had stooped so low as to undermine his honest style of combat. It kept his feet going faster and faster. He lept to the side of a tree, then narrowly to another in order to climb higher to the rapidly moving richter. He lept off of a tree and did a reverse somersault, nearly striking Richter and urging the treecko to roll, so to evadepound. Richter stood, facing Inrinara for a few moments, catching his breath. Inrinara paced towards the treecko slowly. "Go ahead...eat another one of those berries like a coward."

"Naw...I've some friends who'd probably be more interested." Richter cast the berry on the ground, causing it to bounce back up. From either side of the treeline, masses of yanma appeared, creating a loud buzz and a barrier between the two. Richter turned around and stuffed another berry in his mouth. "Seeyah ruhnd long-nose!" he mumbled loudly.

Inrinara couldn't handle himself anymore, he darted along a tree, striking it and causing considerable damage to each tree he vaulted off. He lunged and grappled Richter, causing the two to fall under the canopy and to plummet downward towards the undergrowth. The two struggled to gain control, though Richter gained the upper hand clenched Inrinara's chest and drained the energy as fast as he could absorb. He then reached for a grepa berry and placed it in the nuzleaf's mouth, overwhelming the pokemon with the bitter, fermented taste of the berry. Taking the opportunity to leave, Richter stood atop Inrinara midair and leaped up for a branch quick attack. "I can't save them all for myself!" and he coursed off along the tree branches.

Richter thought he was safe, and he took a slower pace along the thick overgrowth. He felt the jostle of Inrinara catching footing on a branch, and twitched his head around to see just how pissed off stuck-up was. He shouldn't have. Another green ball, twice the size of the first one, was forming in front of the nuzleaf. " **これを取る、あなたが雑種** **!"** and it let loose straight towards Richternature power: forest, who only barely had enough time to leap up and dodge it. From there, the ball crashed into an enormous tree, causing an entire family of burmy and venipede to scuttle out and look at Richter infuriated. Richter stopped, facing down the multitude and realizing that he was at the wrong place during the wrong time. He bounded upwards and clawed up the tree so fast that bark chipped off into a fine dust.

Richter pushed himself to his limit as he scurried up the enormous tree, more and more inhabitants came from the woodwork and pursued him. He got to the top of the evergreen and took in the hills for a moment, seeing the guild of Prinemport in the distance. It was pretty, but he realized that about 10 venipede were growling at him from below. Sliding down the rough bark of the tree wasn't an option, doing that would hurt profusely.

He suddenly heard the intense hopping from tree to tree from Inrinara, causing many of the venipede to look down in horror as he burst through the top. His salvation came in the form of his enemy. It proceeded to grab Richter and suplex him backward, causing his scaly body to collide with several branches as the two raced downward. Inrinara then pursued him, jabbing at his body in stomps as the two suspended in air. " **おれ が かくされ た ちから だ** **!"** roared Inrinara as several, brown orbs of energy surrounded himself. The nuzleaf hurled them at Richter, causing the treecko to be propelled even faster at the placid (and thankfully quite deep) reservoir of the stream hidden power: fighting.

Richter was underwater, water flowed into his lungs as he struggled to put himself afloat the presciently deep pool which he had descended into. Just as he began to paddle to the surface, Richter was grabbed by Inrinara on the edge of the pool. The treecko winced, breathing air heavily for a few moments before he was slapped by Inrinara fake out. "Let's see you try to be crooked now, punk..." hissed Inrinara as another, green ball of energy flared up in his left palm nature power: forest...

"Well now what?" whined Ulivier to Pascal as the two had set off about 2 minutes from the seedot stairs.

"I think we were after a ghost type...and it had a necklace and a broach. Probably." said Pascal in reply.

"So you're implying that you're foggy about the details?"

"Not at all." Pascal was too occupied with running away from the seedot to remember exactly what happened.

"Where did he go to?" Ulivier continued."

"I dunno."

"Well now what?! I wasn't paying attention to the details!"

"Who's problem is that?!" Silence lingered.

"Ours." whimpered Pascal. The two stood silent as they scaled a log.

"Alright...let's think about this logically, then." began Pascal, trying to maintain a calm propriety. "We're boxed into this hill, which means that whoever had the bracelet couldn't have gone further than the inlet. If we just explore there then we'll be fine."

"Whats to say that we don't wind up at the start of the forest?" Pascal muttered pessimistically as he stumbled through a patch of leaves. Pascal had the advantage of floating. "Why are we even going this far? Can't we just turn around and avoid that boxer thingy?"

"I'm...not sure, actually." retorted Pascal, losing his momentum just as he had started to object. "A second meeting with him is more or less inevitable. When we do, we get our lights put out." Ulivier nodded affirmatively in reply. "We might also win some favor with him if we do what he says..." Pascal laid low as he dodged a prickly, thorny arch of rosebushes.

"And? What good will that do us? Its not like we live in Prinemport or anything."

"I'll tell you this much; it isn't pleasant living like a hermit and sleeping tied up to a willow...it gets chilly." Pascal and Ulivier realized that they were under a sort of pathway, overgrown by roses everywhere.

"Hey Pascal?" said the shelmet, hoping to alert his compatriot.

"What."

"Are we in a garden?"

Pascal looked around, realizing that there were remnants of artificial symmetry in the rosebushes. There was a circular mural mosaic of a red flower on the floor. "Probably."

"Cool."

the two continued, sometimes glancing and musing about what the aesthetic of the place could have been in its glory days.

"We could also be lost;" said Pascal absentmindedly, "that might be a reason to keep going on."

"What?!" Ulivier suddenly turned, eyes wide and losing their natural, stoic slant "How are we supposed to get out?!"

"That's a piece of cake. We just follow the stream out of here. It was somewhere over..." The maze looked all the same. "Oh dear."

"Now What?!-"

"Shut up!" said Pascal, annoyed by Ulivier's questions but simultaneously blessed by them, they yielded critical thinking from the Balloon. "We can solve this easily; all I have to do is float up and survey the forest from the canopy. Ulivier looked up.

"But there are thorns on the ceiling," Ulivier said. Pascal sighed.

"Then we just have to find a clearing in the roses." Pascal set off ahead, and Ulivier trotted quickly behind him. "It shouldn't be that difficult."

about 30 minutes passed.

It was simply too hard to make sense of anything when one had no light (save for the supple rays which penetrated the rose ceiling) to discern where to go. At most, Ulivier and Pascal could only remember two turns before their previous navigation became all Greek to them. Further and further they went, with no opening in the thorny ceiling, no sound of a river, and no escape from the walls of green riddled with fragrant red flowers.

The duo huffed for air, tired of walking nonstop for the past half an hour. Finally, Ulivier fell flat on his bevor. "Can we take a break?..I feel like we've been walking in circles." Pascal looked up. Finally, they recognized the familiar rose mosaic on the floor of the maze.

Pascal groaned in dismay. "Don't tell me that we've walked for an eternity to wind up back at square one!"

"We did." Ulivier said bluntly, misinterpreting slightly less blunt rhetoric.

"I didn't ask for your stupid opinion!"

"Since when am I stupid?!" asked Ulivier indignantly, "Aren't you the one who stepped into the maze first?"

"I can't remember!"

"My point exactly! We're probably gonna starve in here because of one of us!" continued Ulivier in a dirge.

"Coming from the guy that couldn't even remember his own name!" righteously shouted Pascal, "and as to starving to death, I'm a balloon! they don't eat!"

"Well...you'll go insane without any company!" between their acidulous accusations, the two suddenly heard a murmuring from the outcast end of the hall to their left. Pascal floated madly, chuckling like a deranged psychopath in glee;

"THE EXIT!" he wailed in joy for the presence of the way out, though he couldn't see what lay at the end of the tunnel because of an ablative fog.

"And like that the marbles are lost," thought Ulivier to himself as he followed with disgruntled steps.

Pascal zoomed, picking up velocity as the fog cleared less and less. He was free! He wasn't stuck in the maze any longer! He was-...in the middle of a clearing surrounded by more bushes. There was an open ceiling though,.

But the drifloon forgot about this as he realized that the clearing was far from clear. It was chock full of fold-able, white wooden stools and seats, all facing towards the end of a brokenly maintained altar. There were statues of Celebi flanking either sides, carved in marble, dissolved. Pascal was particularly entranced by one statue, who stood open armed but with a face long evaporated by time. Pascal longed to see the desire of the embrace engraved on the face of the Celebi...all to no avail. The earth below him was mangled and littered with the occasional agaric, and he realized that the oblique fog still loomed in the room. Everything seemed extremely somber, a chandelier that was once festive and joyous stood in the center of the room, barely dangling and begging for better support from its rose vines. Standing in front of the altar was a green, vegetable humanoid, hands extended on the altar and occasionally slamming on its marble surface. He hadn't noticed the rabid cries of salvation from Pascal, and seemed preoccupied with something serene, though weighed down and desecrated by the faded atmosphere of the wedding chapel. Pascal approached further; he could smell a corrupted and mourning cologne on the Roselia's body; he could hear the whisperings of the somber sprout. "...Through life and death...though death did us part..." Pascal could notice the residue of tears on the little, black and vandalized eyes of the Roselia. His voice played like an untuned flute: "Please...tell me that you do...for my sake..." There laid 2 wedding rings woven from little red roses. Two Rings; not one.

Pascal had gotten too close, and the Roselia suddenly jolted up to face his intruder, an ardent frown imprinted on his face. "Why?! Why are you here?!" Pascal could sense the sudden bitter ferocity on the Roselia's tongue quake all over him. The corrupted dissonance of his voice scared the balloon and made him guilty to impeding the Roselia's mourning.

"I'm Lost!"

"SO AM I!" The roselia knocked half of the petals from both of his hands on the marble, destroying his hand as the Roselia groaned from the sting of pain. The grass type turned towards a slowly retreating ghost type. Cackling composedly in hysteria, he glared at Pascal. "We've...been engaged for 10 years...and Amber died 5 years ago! LET US BE WED IN PEACE!" and at that the Roselia hummed lowly, firing a plethora of viper-teeth leaves. They radiated a sheen of purple and then flew towards Pascal magical leaf. Pascal shrunk his body as miniscule as he could minimize deflating and laying on the floor, lacking the air that sustained his afterlife.

Ulivier grunted to himself as he looked inside of the wedding chapel, "See Pascal? This isn't an exit at- OH GOD!" Ulivier was late to realize that Pascal was under attack, and saw him on the ground, quick to run towards him to somehow aid his right-hand man. Only moments later did he recognise that the roselia loomed over him, with his rosy palm extended towards Ulivier. There was a thorn at the bouquet's nucleus ready to fire. In a split second, Pascal reached out for a wedding stool, using it as a shield to protect them from the bullet of poison aimed right at the flesh of Pascal. It stuck halfway through, a hissing noise sounding as it corroded the painted mahogany of the stool poison sting.

Ulivier clamped shut, and Pascal ballooned up to the hind side of the Roselia in a flank. Ulivier felt an instinct inside him to march toward the grass type without fear, and he abided by it. With his mask shut, Ulivier began to march steadily towards the roselia. His aggressor tried firing yellow powder stun spore poison bullets poison sting, and even tried sapping the life from Ulivier with tenacious green orbs mega drain. None of his tactics sufficed.

"Get Ready, Pascal!" yelled Ulivier as he picked up the pace and roared lowly in a battle cry. Pascal nodded, inhaling deeply and expanding in preparation to strike where the Roselia would be only moments later. Ulivier roared in fury as he bashed himself into the groin of the roselia, sending him flying backward bide as Pascal yelled ear-piercingly loud, flaying the Roselia just as tenaciously and causing him to become dazed. astonish

"I-I'm sorry Amber! I'm sorry!" wailed the Roselia as he covered his face, timidly incapacitated to combat. As he propped himself up to hopefully block a fatal blow, the roselia stood surprised. His shock was not only to the lack of focus towards himself that Ulivier and Pascal shared, but also to the fringing horde of budew which now stood all around them. The roselia could smile; he had backup.

"Kill them!" bellowed the Roselia **,** "They interrupted my wedding!" he pointed towards bashful-faced Ulivier and Pascal. The horde budew then charged at the duo, but before the assault could be realized, the entire lot of them stopped and turned towards the entrance. There was a group of seedot assembled in the chapel's gateway. Nobody moved a muscle. All eyes were on the snail and the balloon shifted to Ulivier and Pascal.

*lightbulb *

"They're on our side!" yelled Ulivier at the top of his lungs. The budew and seedot turned around and assaulted eachother at full force.

It was complete madness. The Roselia was now more concerned with fending off the horde of seedot than Ulivier and Pascal. The seedot struggled to offend the Ulivier and Pascal to no avail. The rest of the seedot and budew attacked each other furiously, some fainting the first time they were hit and all attempting to maul eachother into fine, vegetable pulps. They had different methods when it came to offending eachother. The budew harnessed the little combat training they learned in montessori to absorb energy from the seedot. The seedot were less graceful, simply ramming their bodies into the budew. A few clever ones used the chairs to their advantages, standing on top of them and pouncing on to those who had the lower ground. The truly bold locked their opponents and moonsaulted them. some shot up and careening towards the ceiling or walls from the impact of the clash. Some of the budew and seedot collided with the wall and punctured the rose maze, yelling in agony from all of the thorns that they implanted themselves with. The one thing that everyone had plenty of was tenacity; the troopers always stood back up ready to take another beating.

When Ulivier and Pascal tried to back into a corner, a seedot and a budew charged at the duo in tandem. Just in time, Pascal had grabbed a statue of a celebi and bludgeoned the two in an arc, and they rolled backwards, colliding with and incapacitating 2 other seedot and budew which had tried to charge at them. Another 6 came, taken care of when Ulivier sprayed acid over them, causing them to instantly faint acid. It seemed like they would fare fine if they could capitalize off of the confusion between the two factions, but then...

"What are you twats doing?!" yelled the roselia, instantly causing the group of confused combatants to stop and pay attention to the commanding grass-type. "You should be attacking them!" he pointed adamantly towards the shelmet and drifloon, who looked on sheepishly at the crowd as all of the budew and seedot shifted towards the duo with scowls on their faces. They yelled as they charged Ulivier and Pascal even more intemperately.

*lightbulb *

"Hold on to your ass!" yelled Pascal as he wrapped his tendrils around a scared stiff shelmet. Pascal lifted up Ulivier with all of his might and flew upward, though he lost his balance and swerved forward. Ulivier was only an inch or so above the nucleus of the mosh pit, and sprayed acid everywhere out of anxiety acid, causing a good fraction of the group to faint. Once Pascal had regained his footing, he was able to expand and fly straight up, hovering above the chapel in triumph. "We did it! See you round, nerds!"

Pascal's comment pushed the Roselia beyond off the edge; he was as far from a nerd that one could get (fabulous, to name the antithesis). He backed up and fired poison stings at machine gun speed towards the sky which the duo floated in poison sting. After doing so, he collapsed on the ground, next to his pair of rings, realizing that life was fading from him. With his last bit of energy, he reached for the altar and slid on his ring, coughing profusely in the process.

"...I-I did it for you...we can be together...now..."

He shut his eyes and let go consciousness, the blaring of acid encoated seedot became quieter and quieter. That would be the last time that Dalton Raphael Pewterpipe would ever faint.

The flying duo was less sentimental; they had an innumerable supply of poison darts flying towards them. "MERDE!" screeched Pascal as he minimized minimize as small as possible to dodge the barrage. Not a single sting pierced either Pascal or Ulivier, but it the expulsion of air caused Pascal and his luggage to zoom off into another clearing by a stream. The landing wasn't pleasant; both pokemon were instantly overwhelmed with the agony of fall damage. But then, Pascal opened his suddenly feeble eyelids, he was conscious. He checked over himself, giggling exhaustedly as he realized that he hadn't sustained any debilitating injury beyond serious pain. His wholeness was enough to negate the agony. He darted towards Ulivier and pat his shell emphatically "On l'a fait! Ulivier! On l'a fait!" he yelled, French accent blaring as he shook the shelmet from his sleep.

"Shut up!" and with Ulivier's startling awakening, Pascal's burst of ecstacy had dissipated. Bummer. "What the hell are you even saying?" asked Pascal grumpily as he stood up and shook the dust off of himself. They looked at the peaceful clearing together, and became entranced by it. Something even more mystic than the excitement of a preserved body or the dismay of misunderstanding numbed the harsh pain. Even more uncanny was that the scenery itself wasn't what opiated Ulivier and Pascal.

(Ulivier advanced to level 8. Ulivier learned bide.)

It was over. Emeril had nowhere left to go beyond the clearing which he now found himself in, and he had to stop. This wasn't to the misdreavus' detriment; there weren't any apparent hazards in the clearing. The grass stood tall, but was utterly absent of any wild pokemon, assumed because of how quietly and unabruptly it rustled. Emeril could praise the loot without worry.

Emeril cackled lowly and spitefully as he prepared to observe his steal. Under his breath he mumbeled: "This can't be any better...who cares if I won't be able to pawn off all that other garbage in that rich chick's bag...this'll buy me enough loot to guarantee that I'll forge a spot in the mafia!" he admired how shiny and pristine the necklace was. "It's gonna be awesome...I'm gonna be able to stomp over that pancham b$%h like she's a pair of sandals, and everyone else! So much for Emeril the Terrible, once I show this to Papa Petruchio... I'm gonna be able to evol-" what was going to be a triumphant explanation was halted. Emeril looked ahead. A nuzleaf was about to shove an energy ball down a treecko's throat. To his left were those pokemon who tried to buzzkill his thievery. Was he trapped? Probably.

All four of them were interrupted from their agendas, suddenly prescient to the presence of their thief. "Get b-back here with that necklace...Mr..." the shelmet collapsed, far too exhausted to try to apprehend the criminal. The treecko, however, escaped the grapple and flew across the stream like an acrobat. Emeril's only option was "H-hello, sir..." sheepishly whimpered Emeril as Richter paced closer to the misdreavus. "I don't believe I've seen you in these parts-"

"I don't believe your malarkey, kid." ironic; Richter wasn't particularly older than Emeril, but he had a tendency to act haughtily when it came to administering justice. "Lemme ask you something, pal," Richter knelt down confrontingly, "Where were you an hour ago?" Emeril was completely speechless, lip quivering like a guitar string.

"I-I was helping an elderly boufflant at the park over by second street-"

"Mind explaining the necklace on your person?"

Emeril paused. "This one?" he asked coyly, "It's nice, isn't it? I've been told that the beads are made of ethereal amethyst and-"

Emeril was clenched like a baseball, and could feel life draining from him as Richter clasped his forehead absorb. He laid down and sobbed, feeling the effects of a lack of unlife.

" I'm gonna go on a limb and say that your necklace looks like it's made of macaroni on first glance. I was askin' about the other broach with the arceus on it. Tell me about that one now and I won't steal more life from you-"

"F-fine! I stole the broach from some idiot skitty!" Emeril continued to wail like a 3 year old deprived of a lollipop.

"Give it to me." Richter extended his claw in front of the misdreavus expectantly. Emeril was conscious to the request, but spurted crocodile tears in order to avoid giving Richter his broach. "Right now." again, no response. "I'll make you give it to me, if you'd like." said Richter, grasping Emeril by his beaded necklace and putting his fist back. The misdreavus dematerialized and scurried off, seeing an exit going up the stream.

"NEVER!" yelled Emeril hysterically, still enamored with his prized haul of a necklace. He got 5 meters before he slammed into the brown torso of Inranara, who's eyes flared as stun spore powder encoated every last bit of Emeril nature power: tall grass. With Emeril stuck in place and continuing to bawl, Inrinara approached Richter confrontingly.

"Some opponent you are." demeaned Inranara to Richter.

"Why aren't you stopping that misdreavus?!" asked Richter

"Why on earth did you take that distraction of mine as an opportunity to escape? This is perhaps the 7th time you've fought me dishonestly within a span of 20 minutes." Inranari turned around to generate even more anger from Richter. "You aren't worth my time if you're that dishonest."

Richter growled lowly "I had places to be! That misdreavus over there stole someones broach!"

"Why did you care if he stole a necklace, it isn't your problem. Last I checked you were sympathetic towards repulsive thievery because- "

"Because if I didn't you would be 5 steps ahead of me in catching him."

"Aha!" Inranara pointed smugly at Richter, indulging in the joy of checkmating his rival. "So you were vain enough to outdo me in something as menial as stopping a thief? I didn't think you were that pathetic. That makes how underhanded you are even more despicable. You were using them as a means to an end to try to avoid a chance to gain honor." Inranara turned around and smartly went on: "The end justify the means only when used for a noble cause~. " Richter wanted to object for his life, but he was too furious to; he simply stood there too weak to retaliate. "Furthermore, I wouldn't have cared in the slightest about arresting a thief outside of prinemportian law. But now I see it as necessary in order to trump you." Inranari turned around and approached the misdreavus. "Go ahead and hand me that broach, infidel. I will turn you in and your stolen broach to its rightful own-" interrupted by Richter, who had pounced on stuck-up from behind, Inrinara rolled over and tried to defend the tackle and grab

"Where'd you get your degree in teachin' philosophy, stiff neck?" spited Richter as he pinned Inrinara, "Besides It's my catch! I wanted to arrest him first!" said Richter as he rolled around in a heaping mess of a tackle with his rival nuzleaf.

"Really now?!" retorted Inrinara under feeble grunts, "I have a greater moral fiber, I should hand him in! It shouldn't be left to a vainly motivated treecko who failed in vain to turn a "

"Vain?! Look who's talking, big-nose!"

"DON'T EVER INSULT MY NOSE ON YOUR LIFE, CLOD!" Richter immediately regretted insulting a nuzleaf's nose at close range. He became subordinate under Inrinara's grasp soon after he provoked Inrinara.

Fortunately for Emeril, the paralysis powder had worn off. It was time to make a run for it. He had reached the near edge of the clearing, about to float down the stream to Prinemport, but just as he reached its borders, he had made the mistake at glancing strayly (though directly) at the engraving of Arceus in the center. He was stunned momentarily, a pain coming from everywhere around him and yet nowhere at the same time.

"...Move no further..." came a deep, demanding voice from nowhere. Emeril was coaxed to oblige, feeling an inescapable radiance assault him everywhere judgement: ghost. Emeril was too overwhelmed to yell in pain, or collapse, he simply stood still in utter astonishment, confusing Pascal as to why he was so inactive. Nonetheless, Pascal and Ulivier took the advantage of Emeril's invisible snare as a chance to retrieve the broach. Pascal clenched it in his tendrils and the two hobbled down the stream back to return the broach, leaving a decimated misdreavus and two quarreling grass types behind...

Jane watched in awe as Tom Hannibal punched clean through a 2 foot piece of oak wood, causing it to split in half. Most of their lesson had consisted of demonstrations of a similar manner: the hitmonchan would perform a paragon feat while the skitty would watch on, attempting to attain that level of competence through fundamentals.

"Howdya do that?" Jane asked in a cheerful chirp.

"It's not exactly high science if you practice enough; that's why I want you to give me 20 more tackles on those sandbags." Tom pointed his glove towards the green bag, which was not only the smallest bag, but the lightest and easiest to tackle. In about 3 weeks, the skitty would be moved up to the yellow bag. Progress would be moderate, but that was why Tom practiced in front of Jane, so that he could instill a yearning for high achievement in the skitty. It was working for the most part, but Tom was versed enough to know that Jane would be out of gair after those 20 tackles. Jane was.

The skitty collapsed on the floor, after which Tom chuckled warmly and approached his huffing student. "You did very well today."

"D-did I?!" yelped Jane.

"Quite well, in fact." Tom set the skitty up on her feet, after which the cat looked up towards her keenly. "I'll look forward to working with you again, Ms. Appolinarus."

Jane almost left at Tom's dismissal, but suddenly remembered: "Where'd my necklace go, Mrs. Hannibal?!"

Tom looked down and hummed in reply, crossing his arms. "If my intuition is right, the two should be here just about..." Pascal and Ulivier came bursting through the clearing, both out of breath and Pascal fortunately with the broach in hand. "Now." Tom Hannibal chuckled.

"W-we're sorry that it took...so long." grunted Ulivier, very tuckered out from walking: an maneuver not meant for shelmet.

"No worries," said Tom happily, "You came right on time for Ms. Appolinarus' lesson to be finished." Pascal lethargically lurched the broach towards Jane, who was elated to see that her possession was back in her hands.

"Thank you!" twittered Jane gladly as she started to walk away down the same path to Tom's clearing. "It was cool training with you, Mr. Hannibal! See you Thursday!"

"Yes! Take care and make sure to never trust strangers again!" said Tom, hoping that his wisdom would shine through to the skitty. Chances were that Jane would take the adage to heart: Tom was the coolest hitmonchan around, after all!

Ulivier and Pascal watched the skitty fly by as well, though turned to Mr. Hannibal afterwards. "Are we free to go, now?" asked Pascal in between tired breathing.

"Absolutely not." The two of them froze, their hearts skipping several beats out of anticipation for being pummeled "I've still got to give you my end of the deal." Ulivier and Pascal groaned in dismay. Tom laughed.

"Wait" said Pascal, more intrigued than scared, "...since when did you promise us something in return?"

"Isn't it common courtesy to give back to someone who just went through hell to meet your expectations?" after a pause, the two nodded at Tom's smooth reasoning.

"What do we get?" asked Ulivier.

"Answers!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The answers mentioned by Mr. Tom Hannibal are given in between various lectures.

By some miracle, Roland had completely avoided every stray magikarp and basculin in the entirety of the lagoon. It's a miracle what one can do when one's life is at risk, Roland had reduced what would have been a 30 minute swim to a 10 minute swim (even though it was only 20 feet back to the shore at best. Roland got on his hands and knees when he exited the water. He spit out grimy murk like a water fountain and breathed heavily in the algae-encrusted soup of the near shore, completely forgetting how disgusting it was. He remembered about 10 seconds later and nearly vomited as he coursed out of it as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, Roland was now on the road; blessed by the ground and emphatically grateful that he was out of the fray. His first instinct was to rest or return to demanding tribute from Carson, but by this time his parents were probably there helping him do something lowly and fundamental, like helping their "special little bidoof" build a meager dam. What a bunch of dweebs. Speaking of food, Roland had also just lost his shelmet; now how would he get food?

"B'lloony?...Buddy?..." came far off in the distance. It was the concerned bellow of a slowbro. He was headed this way and the Karrablast couldn't muster the speed to avoid the inevitable idiot. His legs carried him as quickly as he could, but just before he could evade Paul's sight...

"Ohai buggy!" cooed Paul quite loudly. He cooed so loudly, in fact, that it made the karrablast trip in sheer anxiety. Being in closer contact with the soil, Roland could feel the heavy, rumbling magnitude of Paul's approaching stomps. He was trapped, and he turned around grimly to face his fear. By the time he did, Paul was a short 5 meters away, waving cheerfully yet dully at Roland. "Howzit goin?"

"I'd be better if you didn't headbutt me with your thick skull!" burst Roland as he extended his paw towards Paul to make his point. Paul replied with a dull stare into the abyss. Paul had forgotten that he launched Roland at mach speed "Eh? Too stupid to reply, stupid?"

"Naw. Juss lookin for B'lloony and Buddy snail."

The karrablast stared off confusedly. "Who on earth is the buddy snai-". Roland answered his own question before he even finished his own sentence: buddy snail was his breakfast. "DON'T TELL ME THAT THE SUMB**** GOT AWAY!" the karrablast turned around.

"But I dunno where buddy snail went, buggy." said Paul sorrowfully, tilting his head down quite dissapointedly. A furious bug type noticed the circular little potholes in the road.

"ARE YOU THAT G****MN DENSE?! THE WINGNUT LEFT FOOTPRINTS!" Roland addressed the slowbro no further and quickly followed the remnants of Ulivier's tracks. It looked like Roland would get his breakfast yet, hopefully by dinner.

Paul was confused, but inferred that Roland was on to something: his friends! His jog shook the earth, causing Alfonso considerable pain as his teeth were strained on the bouncing tail of Paul. "Wait for me buggy!"

Rutherford's ears were alerted suddenly by the noise of an opening door. It stood at the indent between parallel wings of his large villa. Presently, he was reading a book on advanced calculus, so to impress his many friends with academic achievement. It was difficult though, and the entrancing, intrinsic property of his textbooks prevented him from glaring over much of the interior of his house. White stone, stucco and plaster made up the walls and occasionally the ceiling. Often the stone was decorated with ornamental designs, be it a mosaic of the family's patron deity, arceus, or a mosaic depicting him or his family of 4 together. Wood rarely constituted much of it; when it did, it lay protecting the family from the elements as a roof of old, ancient oak. 2 rooms away was the kitchen, and 8 rooms away and up a staircase lay his master bedroom. It was a pain in the rear to grab a midnight snack; thats why Marth, the family cook was often tasked with ferrying him food in the middle of the night. The hall of his living room was tall, adorned with windows that cast light at different angles as the day went on. Solar light was preferred in Rutherford's villa, and candles only illuminated the white sandstone walls during the darkest evenings. Rutherford could be summoned from reading now because someone special was home: "Papa! I'm back from training!" it was his daughter, and with surprising zeal he stood up from reading a novel to greet his pride and joy.

"Good to see you!" he said, back aching as father and daughter confided in a reciprocal nuzzle, admired as a gesture of great honor between feline folk. After this, the husky purugly sighed in relief, a smile uncharacteristic for the high-profile aristocrat; it was his job to keep a stern, uncaring demeanor unless approached with those with common interest. His daughter deserved the smile though, for Rutherford Appolinarus knew in his heart that his daughter would **always** have his best interest. He sighed in relief, glad to see his Arcean broach safe on his daughter. "Tell me about training. Was it enjoyable for my little minnow?~" the purugly tugged at the cheek of the skitty endearingly, causing the cat pokemon to giggle in embarrassment.

"Stahp it!" she cooed as her father obliged to her request to desist. "But yeah! Mr. Hannibal is super cool! He can punch through anything, even a piece of steel! And its super cool and I got really tired but it was okay and-"

"Alright, dearie." interrupted the purugly, still as warmly accustomed to his daughter as ever. "I get the picture, and I'm very glad that Mr. Hannibal did a good job with teaching you to his fullest." Tom's face went long, "I want you to answer me honestly about something, Jane." said a suddenly stern Rutherford.

"Wazzat?"

Rutherford got close to the skitty, making solicitous eye contact with his daughter. "Did anything bad happen to you while you were away? I need to know so that if something terrible happens to you I can hire a bodyguard to-"

"A ghost stole my Broach, daddy!" cheeped the skitty abruptly.

Rutherford's jaw fell to the floor for a few moments, though the purugly did a good job of composing himself, nodding nervously and processing the fact that his heirloom had just been mortally endangered. He stared at the nucleus of the broach, seeing the engravement of...

"The Arceus on the front!" affirmed Emeril for the nth time to Petruchio, his domineering papa of the Prinemport mafia. Needless to say, Petruchio was more than liberal about how his office was maintained. The only light shed on the weavile's were candles, wax spilling over them and encrusting the surface of Petruchio's crooked desk. The place smelled like a sewer (because it was in a sewer), though not of garbage or other wastes. The room was thickly scented by a robust sea salt above the office and fermenting seaweed; the former sometimes seeping through and dripping occasionally. Petruchio loved to smoke, and his box of herbs were one of the only things well kept among the frazzled furniture and ripped chairs. Every herb imaginable was synthesized to the connoisseur's design; Petruchio alone consumed 20% of the premier herb served on the mafia's infamous black market. What wasn't made of poorly maintained furniture was of mossy, damp and invisible cobblestone or rusty, tarnished grates which caught water. Petruchio hated it, but then again, beggars couldn't be choosers; it was a crappy office or having to rub elbows with his subordinates, one of his least favorite was sitting in front of him. The only thing that opiated the grouch was his prime supply of rawst leaf, his favorite smoking material.

"It was made of pure platinum! Had it not stunned me It would be right here ready to be shifted around! At least give me the credit for stealing it from that skitty," Petruchio didn't want to put up with the Misdreavus' impotence any longer. He gave the impression that he didn't give a damn with a masterful stinkeye. "...its a big improvement...over some of the other theft..." said Emeril, nervous and scared like he had seen a ghost.

Petruchio set his legs off of his chair and tossed his leaf away after taking one last huff of his Rawst leaf. Shutting his eyes, setting his arms on his desk, and drumming his fingers on the scratched wood, he placed an impression of impatience quite well on Emeril.

"Prove it."

Emeril looked around nervously, sweat figuratively radiating off of his head as he continually glanced. "I-I don't have the broach."

Sighing quite poignantly, he took out another rawst roll and lit it with the end of his candle. "I know the broach that you're talking about, Emeril." Petruchio said as he took a huff of the smoky, flavorful incense. He exhaled in the misdreavus' area quite passive-aggressively. "I also know of the family quite well. That dipshit skitty is the daughter of one of legit high-rollers in Prinemport. At first glance her daddy might seem like another brick in the wall of the damned city administrators cramping our style." another huff. "The key word being at first."

"W-what do you mean, boss?"

"I mean that the Appolinarus family is on really, really good terms with the hierophant behind the scenes. We have spies in his papacy and we know well enough that its been on good terms with the Appolinaruses since Prinemport was founded." He paused his urgent tone of voice to take a third smoke from rawst leaf. "We also know that his twerp has the broach. We've seen it and you've probably heard of it at the very least. But if you went ahead and told me that you actually stole that little relic without proof, you would presume that I'm stupid enough to believe that Rutherford Appolinarus' daughter was unattended and waltzing around the outskirts of Prinemport carelessly."

A pause ensued. Petruchio smoked his rawst leaf. Emeril prepared himself to reply.

"That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you, sir."

Petruchio took a long inhale of Rawst leaf, causing the leaf to burn nearly all the way. His eyes turned read and bloodshot. "M'kay."

…

shadow claw.

Emeril would have easily brought down the door if he weren't aehtereal, but the ghost instead phased through the door, winding up on the floor and facing the gate to hell the door had suddenly become. Emeril was grateful that Petruchio had restrained his shadow claw to a minimal power, though the misdreavus knew that he only did so to make sure that Emeril would be around for further scolding. The door opened in slow motion and slammed. Petruchio's brows were tilted downward in utter choler as he crossed the damp, stone hallway to grab Emeril by his necklace. After doing so he tutted the misdreavus, barely restarining himself from lashing out with another shadow claw. "You just had to be smart and take me for a dummy, didja."

"I'm telling you the truth this time!" pleaded Emeril, sobbing and regretting for once in his life being an ass. He was pummeled, on the verge of fainting, and was then dropped to the floor.

"Maybe you should start learning not to cry wolf." hissed Petruchio as he spit out his rawst leaf on Emeril, searing his forehead. Petruchio marched to his door, but before he slammed it...

"One more thing, Emeril."

"W-what..." sniffled Emeril.

"If you talk nonsense to me again you're fired. Keep in mind that you'll be on my shit list if I kick you out" the door slammed. Down the hallway could be heard the footsteps of a predative lizard. Annie the pancham stood smiling maliciously in front of Emeril.

"Havin' a bad day, are we?" said the pancham, african drawl twanging in her vocalizations almost as spitefully as the sound of her knuckles cracking. Emeril gingerly nodded in reply as the scraggy backed up, getting ready to charge. "Imma make it ten times worse."

A crowd of low level mafia gathered to watch Annie strike Emeril for ten minutes straight.

Marth was terrified; the salt was put in his soup after the pepper. The resident chef of the Appollinarus' estate was petrified by the disorder of seasoning, and it wasn't because the Appolinaruses preferred salt before pepper. Unless the wingull soup (they make use of the dead bodies of poor, juvenile wingulls. It's completely acceptable within Pelliperian culture to make use of corpses bodies. It's their form of cremation) was seasoned with salt before the pepper, then the pepper would be quickly absorbed into the sensitive flesh of the wingull. The meat would thereby be disgustingly spicy and bitter to the taste, it reacted far better with a seasoning of salt, and a wonderfully savory flavor would be instilled into the meat, which is why wingull soup was a delicacy. Marth had just ruined 300 gold pieces worth of meat.

"Marth!" suddenly called Mr. Appolinarus from the corridor in the distance, probably expecting to sample the wingull soup for himself. At this point, Marth the archen was restricted to playing it cool and pretending that the soup hadn't been ruined. Sweat rolled off his naked head and into his feathers as he absently stirred at the desecration of wingulls' corpses. Enter Rutherford. "How's the soup doing?"

"I-it's good...but its boiling hot! You can't eat it or else you'll burn yourself!" said Marth, subconsciously imploring the purugly to not sample his soup.

"Don't worry, Marth m'boy," assured the fat feline, coursing beside the archen and taking a look into the huge pot of soup. "I'm quite partial to hot food!" Marth had forgotten the little detail the 3rd time this month. The grabbed the ladle from the archen's hand with his prehensile, springish tail, and proceeded to sip some of the soup. His face turned sour, fettered by the overwhelming taste of pepper, and he spurted the gross concoction into a nearby sink. He grimaced as he turned his head towards a sheepishly grinning rock type. It chuckled anxiously.

"What on earth is this...toilet bowl of a stew you just cooked?!" bellowed the purugly, brutally blunt in the volume of his voice.

"I-its my mom's recipe..."

"I couldn't give a damn about your family recipe! It's awful! It makes me wish I was never born for God's sake!" ranted the purugly, each word a shot to the heart of the archen.

"I-I can make it better sir...just give me some time and I'll have a new recipe fixed up for you in no time!"

"Do you realize how expensive wingull is?! I can't just waltz into a mortuary expecting the people to give me a dead wingull!" continued the purugly, each word bellowing and causing Marth to frown a little more every second.

"Rutherford," suddenly called from the doorway, a delcatty striding into the room and beside Rutherford gently, "Don't yell like that...the physician said that it isn't good for your blood pressure."

"Fine, dearie..." said Rutherford, soothed by her tender persuasion. "Marth, I'm sorry for being harsh with you on the soup...at least you can make a broth with the other bits and pieces of the wingull."

Marth gasped in relief, he had dodged the bullet of corporal punishment this time. "A-and I'll be able to make a ramen in replacement...I already have florentined cabbage and spicy shrimp all set up for tonight's dinner party."

"See honey?" cooed Angie Appolinarus, "Our little chef is quite the resourceful little bird, isn't he?" Marth scratched the back of his head and blushed in embarassment. The delcatty exited.

"Anyway, I was here on business, Marth." resumed the purugly, "Last I checked you were decent at fending off bad guys, correct?"

the archen nodded. "T-thats why I was apprenticed to Master Alfred...its a long story, yeah." he said, as he dumped the expensive soup down the drain of the stone sink.

"And you aren't busy midday?" Marth was more or less always occupied with writing sappy, poorly written poetry to his crush during that time.

"N-no..." Marth frowned, realizing that this was likely leading to a disappointment.

"Well, you're hired to escort Jane to her training with Tom Hannibal on Thursdays, Tuesdays and Saturdays." Marth was doubly dissapointed. Saturday afternoon was when he actually delivered the poetry to the apple of his eyes. It was probably for the best, though; Marth almost always ended up getting a fist to his face after his poetry was sampled.

"B-but I have a personal life!" Marth whined pathetically; for someone who could take on 5 mafia underlings at the same time, the archen could be a really whiny guy.

"That's a shame, now isn't it?" said Rutherford as he turned around, cold shoulder freezing Marth's teeth off. "Besides, its only 2 hours of your free time; I'd be jealous of you if I got a break as long as yours." Rutherford stood, facing away from the archen, and turned his own head towards him one last time for a parting food for thought: "And if you're ever discontented with my orders, then you can feel free to go ahead and pack your things." and with that, Rutherford was heading back into his room, ready to finish his chapter on calculus.

"Mamma mia..." and the little bird refilled his cauldron for the ramen, sprinkling in tasty rattata whiskers inside...

Richter, with his arms crossed and brows flat, wasn't pleased to have his mother, Pollyanna, stare at him from across the flimsy, balsam table in their dining room. He knew exactly what he had done to deserve something as petty as a time-out, in spite of being some 10 years too old for something so sophomoric. But here he was. "You just had to prove that nuzleaf wrong, didn't you Richter?" said his mother grovyle. Richter stayed silent.

Barely any light was cast on the little kitchen by the sun, which was just falling over the hills. Only a tiny, slender candle between mother and son lit a diminutive bit of the room. Most of the furniture was pure wood, old feathers stuffed faded upholstery, and the every inch of the house smelled like grepa berry wine. It's unfortunate that the small irritates the nose after a considerable amount of time. Everyone in the house was dead silent, only breathing save for the clank of a his father's tea mug on the wood every now and then in between smooth sips. His father, Emon, was a heliolisk who married his mother under the impression that her acres of grepa berry fields would make her a trophy wife. He was wrong; but there was still some love in the relationship from there on out (emphasis on the word "some"). Emon was cold-blooded, and in the night reserved himself to reading a newspaper or an almanac because of how drowsy he could get. On the flip side, his cold-blood made him excellent at working the fields during the day. The sun was about to set, so he would soon be off to bed.

"The sooner you answer me, the sooner you can go to bed, Richter. I'll stay here all night if I have to." Pollyanna the grovyle had triumphed. This was the third time today that Richter had been in a mental checkmate.

"I...he's always trying to be better than everyone else...I hate how self righteous that guy is!" suddenly groaned Richter, engineering his reasoning as he went along.

"He's got a point, Polly." mumbled Emon, "Those shiftry are gonna be the end of the entire region...Sure, it starts out dandy with Prinemport giving sanctuary to them, but next thing you know the Pomeg guild can't stop the horde of nuzleaf for sh-"

"I'm trying to have a word with Richter, Emon." replied Polly, turning back to her son. "Well I'll tell you what: aren't you just as self righteous when you try to challenge him? Why were you really trying to outdo that Nuzleaf?" silence.

"B-because I wanted to be better than him. I thought that if I saved the broach then I'd be able to rub it in his face."

"Because?..." an even longer pause.

"Because what else am I supposed to do?! Sit here for the rest of my life farming grepa berries and scraping a living off of peddling subpar wine? This family is a black sheep when it comes to our quality! Our only customers are the people that run scummy wedding chapels for idiots who think they've fallen in love at first sight! I hate it all and if I can prove that I can outplay that snake, then I'll be happy!" Richter had risen from his seat as he ranted on about his dilemna. He sat down the second that he saw his mother unaffected by his outburst. As he sat, he felt the fatigue and guilt of yelling towards his mother like a train had hit him. How dare he speak up to what was probably the most patient grovyle in the world.

"Really now?... What am I supposed to say? Go ahead and forge your own life and leave your mother and father without work? We'll starve."

"Well I'm 17 goddamn years old and its time that I be able to call my own shots. I want to be treated like an adult." more silence loomed in the air as the sun said its last goodbye to the day, going over and taking a 10 hour nap until he was ready to rise again.

Emon stood up, arched his back to stretch, and with his mug in hand he ambled towards the kitchen counter and set it down. "I'm going to bed," uttered Emon in between a yawn, "See you there if I'm still awake." He took to the hall and collapsed on his bed without any regards to his nightly routine.

"You only become an adult when you start to act like one. You already slept in today, played hooky so that you could be better then someone who was minding their own business-"

"I was gonna turn that broach in!-"

"So that you could parade around your good deed like a jack***, right?" trumped Polly. The treecko stared on at his mother without any more energy to rebuttle. "And you have a load of cuts and bruises instead of the broach. You also stole oran berries. They cost us a fortune...You wanna be the adult?" the grovyle made an intense, smugly compassionate glare. "Tell me what your punishment should be."

"I did nothing wrong."

"I'll tell you what, Richter, it takes some maturity to answer to your mistakes, and if you don't...then you'll be no different than the little kid you were 8 years ago with a lollypop stuck to your tongue, begging me to get it off and having to call a doctor to remove it." both giggled at the comic relief, only one was left blushing furiously. "Want me to tell you what my version of the punishment is gonna be?" Richter nodded, locked in a verbal clench hold by his own mother. "You'll be stuck in the house for a month. Your father will travel to the store and you'll do double the work to make up for his absences. If you aren't eating or drinking you'll be harvesting grapes or fermenting the grepa berry juice. And you most certainly won't have any contact with any of your friends. Do you have a better punishment?"

"...no."

"Good," tweeted Pollyanna righteously,"and I forgot to mention the first part. You're going off to bed right now. No dinner. Tata~." Richter groaned, the nail in the coffin piercing his heart; he couldn't stand not having dinner, and was praying that he wouldn't be deprived of a supper for his life. Making up his own punishment would have been far better. "I love you, Richter!" the grovyle waved goodbye to her son. He slammed his door and collapsed on his bed as fast as his father had done."

Everything Richter needed was in his bag. It was thankfully only about a forty minute walk to the Pomeg guild from the vineyard, so he wouldn't be too fatigued by the time he got here. Not a penny was out of place; Richter's excellent night vision had served him well, and he was able to scrounge up enough petty cash to get dinner for 7 days if there was a wait to get inside of the guild. He had a lighter, in case he needed to camp outside of the city gates until morning, and most importantly, a picture of his family to artifice a piece of sentimentality. The night was cool and the grass was damp enough to allow him light footing outside of his house to make sure that his parents wouldn't wake up. It was time to go.

Tonight had pushed him over the edge; it led him to the only conclusion that the only place where he would truly be able to find some peace of mind and get control of his miserable life was the Pomeg guild. He heard fantastic stories of knights and great warriors who protected Prinemport and everywhere in Gambria. Maybe he could rise into their ranks and get his parents a decent piece of land so that they could sell higher quality wine. Above all, however, Richter had a guarantee that he would be able to commandeer his own future where he was going.

He slung his bag over his shoulders, and with incredible adroitness he opened the, hopped out and sped along the flank of his house silently. Just before he crossed into the forest, however, Richter caught glimpse of his parents, sleeping together soundly but peacefully in spirit. There was the one downside to living away from home.

Richter only sniffled as he continued on into the night, bound for Prinemport.

Ramsey had his legs crossed, seated quite comfortably on his wooden, oak floor regretfully carved from the organs of his fellow wooden brothers. The shiftry felt an inherent unity with all forms of wood, only using it as an ultimate means to an end for shelter. Builders flocked to use the most flame resistant types of wood, pines were a favorite in construction because they weren't easy to burn. The decorations in Ramsey-sama's comfortable bungalow, which laid among the tallest oak tree in Prinemport forest, were organically carved drawers. Brass braziers for flames to burn brightly ornamented the room as well, though their light only illuminated the bottom of the hall. The ceiling was dark and spiraled upward into canopy. A banner spelling: "Elder" was emblazoned in white on a green sheet of pure linen behind the elder himself. Before him stood a mat, colored a lighter green, which would be sat upon when Pokemon desired audience with the daimyo. One of his greatest allies and enemies was about to enter.

A nuzleaf approached, wearing a green flag on his back and wielding a naginata made out of carved wood, though he toted the latter at his side like a soldier. "Ramsey-sama," began the nuzleaf with a robotic dignity, "You have summoned Inrinara to your chamber and he is outside of the door. We await further address."

"Allow Inrinara to enter;" lethargically cooed the sitting shiftry, "he and I have much to discuss."

"Yes, Ramsey-sama." the guard-nuzleaf left. Ramsey had a very funny name; it was scoffed at by many for being too western. Romanizing one's name was in fact quite demeaning to the average member of a seedot family, but Ramsey saw it as necessary to be a diplomat with the Prinemportians. After all, he had a colony to maintain. It were the little, sinuous bends in the rules that made Ramsey so adept at running Prinemport Outskirt Seedot Society (POSS). Lack of that flexibility was what brought Inrinara to Ramsey-Sama of Prinemport forest.

Inrinara entered. He looked at the shiftry with an indignant frown and knelt at the mat. The two bowed. "The other elders aren't here. If you're going to punish me, do so on the accord of the other elders." said a stern nuzleaf.

"You and I both know that you're only calling on a jury that will have empathy for you. Oimatsu, Gomashira, so many of those conservatives all want a little pet to champion their 'new youth'."

"You disobey shiftry mandate!" suddenly gushed Inrinara, "It is required that a caucus be summoned in order to judge a member-"

"I know the book of mandates like the back of my fan, Inrinara of Prinemport Forest. I also know that they have been written and kept for 1000 years, during a time when Shiftry faced no opposition and did not have to adapt to survive."

Vehement, Inrinara looked up at a shiftry, stalwart in his interpretations of the law. "That subtracts nothing from your disgraceful violations."

"Who are you to talk?"

"You said it yourself, Ramsey-sama: I am Inrinara of Prinemport Forest!" at this exclamation, Inrinara proudly beat his chest, putting emphasis on his identity. "I have done no sin in sending those loyal to me into valiant combat, and you should be **proud** that a successor to your lineage has gone the distance in apprehending an invade-"

"When did I say anything about you inheriting a spot in shiftry eldership? If so, it certainly won't be from me or anybody that has a lick of sense, Inrinara."

"Are you deaf to your own words!?" said the nuzleaf, suddenly standing up, provoked by Ramsey's insult to the elders who fawned over Inrinara. "You are the fool here, going so far as to violating mandates twice! I have only addressed you by your proper name through the entirety of my summoning; you have just breached mandate 7,829 by not doing the same!"

"Here's the thing, Inrinara of Prinemport Forest," said Ramsey-sama, suddenly reverted to addressing Inrinara in the proper fashion. "I'm not one to fuss over little details like those. They're often broken. You're breaking mandate 1,600 by standing up in the presence of an elder's audience." Ramsey grinned smugly, watching the look of sheer shock on Inrinara's face as he knelt down at rocket-speed. "And speaking of breaking mandates...lets look at some of the more significant breaches on your end..."

"Mandate no. 529: no seedot or young pokemon should ever be put into combat or a violent situation lest they be the age of ten or older. Mandate no. 277: only shiftry are permitted to train inferior evolutions in physical facets. Mandate no. 300: any streams are sacred; they allow water to be bequeathed unto trees and serve as our force of life. They are not to be littered in, and we've yet to fish out all of our seedot from . Mandate no. 25: no nuzleaf is to deface the private property of another pokemon. You've " the veins on Inrinara's forehead bulged further and further in dissapointment, his jaw falling lower and lower at his own incompetence. He hit the floor in disgust with himself. "It seems like someone is fixing to violate mandate no. 25, isn't he?" Inrinara groaned. "The list goes on, Inrinara of Prinemport forest, and you'll notice that as the imporance of the mandate grows-"

"The severity in its offense increases to our elders," said Inrinara, hoping to impress Ramsey with trivial knowledge. a pause lay between the two.

"Mandate number 1,025 states that one is to not interrupt an elder." Inrinara screamed inside.

"You made an incredible, nigh unforgivable offense, today, which is why I summoned you: so that I can atone you for your violation of mandate number 4!" suddenly roared the shiftry, eyebrows tilted downwards furiously as he stood up and approached his fellow nuzleaf. "You used energy ball through nature power!"

"In self defense!" indignantly stated Inrinara in reply.

"Don't give me that! You challenged the innocent outsider to a fight! You had no business knowing that technique in the first place, Inrinara of Prinemport Forest!" Inrinara wanted to continue on, but his rhetoric was outdone. The nuzleaf's head tilted downwards in shame. He hadn't realized how much he had shot himself in the foot. "See?! Everyone is guilty! I'm guilty of violating mandates, so are you, and the sooner you accept less than perfection, the sooner you can learn to live in peace! Now kneel!" Inrinara knelt. "by mandate 9,212, I will now state your punishment, for I have formally addressed the reason of your punishment." Inrinara nodded. Ramsey could grin; this would be his favorite part of the conversation. He cast his fan towards the nuzleaf, preparing his sentence...

"You are to expiate your sins through a five year service at the Pomeg guild in Prinemport!" roared Ramsey succinctly. "I sentence you as such to give you perspective and to prevent any further damage to th by a petty hooligan!" All means of sounds were going on in Inrinara's noggin, mostly those of disappointment and wails for someone to pinch him and end this nightmare. He sure as hell didn't want to be surrounded by a group of liberal knights set on dismantling the POSS tribe, one of the only authentic Shiftry colonies west of the East!

"I have already arranged your brethren to gather your things. You are to be escorted by me to the Pomeg guild tomorrow morning. I have already corresponded with the Aries of the guild; he is quite prepared to receive you and you will begin your career tommorow." Inrinara had no more energy to object. He whimpered softly, utterly disgusted but forced by his platinum conscience to obey his daimyo. "You are dismissed."

"Y-yes Ramsey-sama." The two retreated, Ramsey kneeling at his linen pillow and quite keen to sleep. Nuzleaf muttered curses to himself in Japanese as he prepared to sleep in his bed for the last time in five years. Ramsey the shiftry chuckled, for the expulsion of Inrinara was a good riddance indeed.

mach punch Tom was presently rushing at the red rice bag like a machine gun, punching it as his gloves gleamed like steel. To say the least, Pascal and Ulivier were impressed. "How do you do that?" asked a wide eyed Pascal in awe, "I don't think anyone can move that fast."

Hannibal shrugged, striking the bag one last time and then turning towards the two. "Practice! It doesn't happen over night; ye've gotta have some experience if you wanna pull off a mach punch as perfectly as that. I've had 40 years of it."

"Forty?" thought Pascal out loud "You look like you're at most thirty years old."

"I don't sound like it from what you've heard; that's the thing." said Tom as he began to stow away all of his bags, carrying up to four at a time to a nearby shed. He returned soon after, speaking each time he returned in grunts. "I'm an old coot, really, and I act the part. Do you think that I go out to caravan with the pomeg guild on a daily basis?" Pascal and Ulivier nodded while lugged two punching bags to his shed. He suddenly set one down, chuckling some. "This one's getting old. Might as well put it in its place." he put the other bag down and breathed heavily, radiating heat and putting his fists up. With a simple, uppercut jab from Tom, the bag had flown up, the water vapor in the air instantly crystallizing hitting a tree branch and shattering into snowflakes. bullet punch. The hitmonchan wheezed somewhat, and clasped his knees, looking as if he might faint. Shocked, Ulivier and Pascal followed after concernedly and examining a mortally fatigued fighting type.

"A-are you alright, monsieur?" inquired Pascal. Tom only groaned and huffed in reply, getting on his knees and looking as if he might faint!

"I-I'm...I'm..." said Tom feebly, turning towards the two with somber, heavy eyes. "I'm...pulling your leg!" he suddenly smiled and stood up like a spring chicken, proud that he had rused the other two pokemon. Pascal and Ulivier's eyes sagged down in dismay. "Look at the two of you, letting a geezer thirty-five years older than you be better at jokin' around than you." Tom went back to work, slinging the younger and cleanlier bag over his shoulder and going to the shed. The balloon and snail followed. "By the way, you answered wrong on the last question; the last time that I ever even thought about going on another guild adventure was 5 years ago."

"What made you stop?" asked Ulivier.

"Just look at me! I'm in no condition to go out and about on adventures."

"Yes you are!" chimed the two.

"You just sent that punching bag to high heaven just by tapping it!" declared Pascal

"Sure, but that's no reason why I should get on a team." Tom Hannibal arrived at the shed and slid on in, rummaging for a spot to keep his used punch bag. "I'm on retirement because I don't feel that sense of novelty anymore. It simply isn't fun to me and I'll probably slow the people that _want_ to go on a good adventure anyhow." Tom exited his wooden, rickety old equipment shed to return to the verdant clearing where he trained. "And when you get old, there's this thing called obligation that sorta builds up and restricts you to a certain lifestyle. I sorta envy you two because of that; you can go anywhere and do anything you want without any ramifications. That changes when you turn thirty." The Hitmonchan shut the door to the shed. "By fifty you're in a trap. You have no clue how many favors I owe people and how many enemies I've made."

"Is that why you had to train that skitty?" asked Pascal, "She didn't look like she was particularly cut out to fight..."

Ambiguously, Tom nodded. "Yes and no. Anyone can learn how to be decent at the game." Tom let the comment sit in the air,"I have to be extraordinarily careful in the city; there's an enormous mafia that Isn't friendly to do-gooders."

"A mafia?!" asked Pascal "My big brothers tell me that Prinemport is the prettiest place in the world."

"From above, sure. Its got a lovely coast, but you'll notice that there isn't much of a tourism industry 'round these parts because of them. Go to any government building and you'll be told that two thirds of the people that have come to Prinemport have been robbed, and the unlucky one-sixth gets mugged violently. The Mafia loves tourists, which is why tourists hate the mafia, and, by transitive property, Prinemport." the three continued onward up the winding trail. "Aside from that, Prinemport has a mean market because of all the imports. I suppose that's one benefit of the mafia: they're sea-faring folk, and there's a whole network of them around the Nellilassan sea. They can bribe barges up the nose to give them prime supply, and we get all of the good stuff. Prinemport is the busiest port in the world this side of the Nelillasen." The three arrived back at the center of

"I gotta go to town anyway..." muttered Tom as he was thereby disgusted by the condition of all his gear. He began to set all of it up in an even line, preparing to throw a decimating straight through the whole of them.

"Where are you from?" asked Pascal, "That accent of yours isn't typical for Gambrians."

"You're right. I've moved here to work for the hierophant back when I got kicked out of Vilhemshire sparring academy up north. It was the sensible thing to do; the hierophant needs working hands to keep him safe, and I was probably the best talent around the entirety of the continent."

Now all of the bags, pugil sticks, sparring equipment and more which had been in decline stood along in a well established line. Inhaling passionately, the fighting type stood ready to take care of his broken hardware. His right mitt grew white hot and as he yelled he dashed through the aligned baggage so rapidly that in a blink of an eye, he was on the other side of the broad column. His fist still extended, he looked behind himself to see his equipment unnaffected by his dash. Before Ulivier or Pascal could react, the whole of the equipment suddenly flashed and conflagurated ferociously, disintegrating into white-hot ashes fire punch.

"W-why and how did you just do that?" sheepishly uttered Ulivier.

"Why?" Tom turned towards the duo, approaching them and shaking his still searing fist to cool it down, "It was getting old! If your gear is in poor condition, then you've got a real problem: you only train as well as your implements are. I have some spare cash from training people, anyway. It's how I make myself useful. I've also gotta buy hondew berries, 'cause they're the only thing I can stomach on a fast." Tom arched his back, and set off to the trail back to the main road. "I'll be off then."

"B-but you haven't given us actual answers!" said Ulivier, somewhat timid in his delivery.

"And we're going to Prinemport too!" added Pascal.

Tom Hannibal turned around, glancing at the snail and balloon warmly. "There's no reason why you can't come along."

"...So that's why I was kicked out of Vilhemshire prime. Who would've though that I'd end up getting expelled framed for a teacher's murder?" said the Hitmonchan as he continued down the road to Prinemport, Pascal floating and Ulivier hobbling beside him.

"That's kinda grim," said Pascal. An ampibom passed by, lugging a cart full of grepa berry ferment on his way to Arcadeau city to deliver it to the hierophant. Pascal and Tom waved, Ulivier lacking arms or social energy to greet the monkey, and the ampibom waved back as she walked on her trip.

"It's what happens when you're the top of your class and you have jealous classmates. But yeah, because I got framed the Hierophant wasn't eager to hire me. I was stuck in Prinemport from there, and I found out that Pomeg guild was really excited to have someone as distinguished as I work for them. I had no where else to go, so I accepted."

"W-what's a guild?" asked Ulivier, somewhat shy in his shell. He hadn't eaten all day, so he was quite grouchy and shy.

"Right, you two aren't from these parts. A guild is where rescue teams sleep, eat, and stay at when they aren't out and about doing their jobs. I'll have to show you it when we get to prinemport. I had a blast there when I was younger." the midday sun was starting to wane in the sky; the shadows of grepa trees started to tilt towards the three. It was quite a while since any of them had eaten. "Of course, that'll be before we go get some grub."

Ulivier eyed Pascal, too exhausted and bashful to ask Mr. Hannibal the essential questions. "Mr. Hannibal?"

"Hm?"

"You wouldn't happen to be on terms with a Doctor Seamus Carrol, would you?"

"Well, when you're as much of a celebrity as I am, you get around and know people."

"So you'd be willing to contact him for us? We have a question for Doctor Carrol."

"No." the two frowned momentarily. Ulivier looked like he might have cried. "But I can tell you how you can contact him when we eat."

"What for?"

"I wanna save the surprise for when you've got a full stomach. We're also almost to the gate, so we've gotta shut up to make it look like we're on business." The three did from there on, save for one last question from Ulivier

"H-hey...Mr. Hannibal?" he whimpered.

"Yes?"

"Do you know anything about humans?"

the hitmonchan put his mitt to his chin pensively for a few moments.

"No."

"Damnit."


End file.
